Torque
On 13 October 1933, a Friday of course, Invicta closed its doors. It had been a short-lived pleasure. The brand was founded in 1925 by Noel Macklin and his financier Oliver Lyle, who had made his fortune in sugar. Macklin, born in Australia, had already made a few unsuccessful attempts, but with Lyle’s backing, he was now able to build the vehicles of his dreams in the garage of his house in Cobham. One goal was always: maximum torque, an Invicta should be able to accelerate from walking pace to top speed in the highest gear. To achieve this, Macklin almost exclusively used Meadows engines and gearboxes (see also here). The highlight of Invicta’s short history was the S-Type, introduced in 1930, which was powered by a 4.5-litre Meadows six-cylinder engine.
But before we get to that, we would like to briefly introduce Noel Macklin’s sister-in-law, Violette Cordery. In 1926, she set a world record at Monza with an Invicta, driving 10,000 miles at an average speed of 90.88 km/h (not alone, of course). Shortly afterwards, she drove 5,000 miles at an average speed of 113.8 km/h in Montlhéry. A year later, she drove another Invicta across five continents, a little over 10,000 miles. In 1929, together with her younger sister Evelyn and, of course, in an Invicta, she managed 30,000 miles in under 30,000 minutes (that’s just under 21 days) at Brooklands. This reliability made the brand and the sister-in-law world-famous, at that time. In 1930, Donald Healey then also won an Invicta his class at the Monte Carlo Rally, and in 1931 the entire event, this time on an S-Type – and that brings us back to our story.
What was unusual about the S-Type, of which around 75 were produced, was not only its Meadows engine with a power output of around 100 hp, but also its so-called ‘underslung’ chassis. This meant that the central supports ran below the axles, which not only significantly lowered the centre of gravity and improved driving characteristics, but also opened up new possibilities in design. Most of these Invicta low chassis were bodied by Carbodies, which actually specialised in Taxis. However, the vehicle we are showing here, chassis number S57, was delivered from the factory as a Fixed Head Coupé – and, like all Invictas, was given a nickname, in this case ‘Sea-Bear’. Originally, the Seebär was painted red with green highlights, but it was given this new coat of paint during the restoration (from 2011, costing almost a million dollars). It is now being auctioned off by Broad Arrow, where it is expected to fetch between 450,000 and 650,000 dollars.
But we still want to show a more typical example of this S-Type Invicta; there could be several.
VIN: S75
Engine: LG6/451/S4 (originally: 7478)
Auction: Bonhams, Paris 2020, sold for 1,610,000 euros. Delivered to Lord Ebury in 1931, the car came to Henry Pether in 1938, who owned the Invicta until 1995. Over the years, he only repaired what was absolutely necessary, which was almost nothing. The Invictas – this one is called ‘Scout’ – were considered ‘indestructible’. In the early 90s, a new engine was available, apparently a racing engine (and probably from a Lagonda), but the original Meadows engine still exists. Wonderful vehicle!
We have more such veterans in our archive. And anyway: buy pre-war classics!
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