Kenilworth heritage company Alvis making new cars with old parts

The Alvis Graber Super Coupe is one of the models featured in the Continuation Series

A 103-year-old car company says it is making brand new vehicles using parts and blueprints from models produced 70 years ago.

Alvis started making cars in Coventry in 1920 but stopped in 1967, leaving only a company that serviced and repaired classic vehicles.

But it has restarted the production of some of its most iconic designs from a base in Kenilworth, Warwickshire.

The cars are not reproductions, says company owner Alan Stote.

"We've just picked up where the last cars were made and produced - you could just say it's a long time between orders."

The cars carry Alvis chassis numbers and engine numbers which follow on from the last in the model sequence.

Peter Crowley started as an apprentice at the company in 1960

The company is producing a limited number of its famous models as the Continuation Series, using the same blueprints and manufacturing techniques as on the originals.

The engines have been updated to satisfy modern performance and emissions criteria, says Mr Stote.

Peter Crowley, who started as an apprentice at the company in 1960, offers advice to current apprentices.

He said the rebirth was "remarkable".

"I'm one of the last people alive who worked on the Alvis car production and then this job became available here and I thought 'wow, that's my job'," he said.

Mr Crowley said he was one of the last people alive who worked on the Alvis car production

Mr Crowley said going back to the company 40 years on made him feel "quite emotional".

"I was actually taking engines to pieces that I'd probably assembled back in the 60s," he explained.

The Vanden Plas Tourer was manufactured from the original drawings

The company archive, purchased by Mr Stote, includes hundreds of thousands of original Alvis parts and more than 50,000 works drawings, technical data sheets and correspondence files.

"Without the drawings and archives it would be virtually impossible," he said, "but we're just doing what Alvis have always done."

He added that he had been "pleasantly surprised" at the interest in the cars, with customers in Japan and the UK.

"They're essentially people who are interested in motor cars, they like things that are individual to them and they like the involvement with the manufacturing process," he said.

The firm says there is a two-year wait for the hand-built vehicles which start at about £300,000.