Today’s video is about the Standard Vanguard phase 1 – let me know what you think and don’t forget to like and subscribe for future videos on mid-century cars
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Standard Vanguard
If you’re watching this from outside the UK and know somebody who owned one or owned one yourself, I’m not entirely surprised, because the Standard Vanguard was as the marketing material said ‘Made for Britain, designed for the world’
In post-war Britain when this car came to market, life was a world away from what we know now. We still had the late Queen Elizabeth the second’s father on the throne, rationing was still in place for some items and along with that, Britain was in a period of recovery from the Second World War.
And why do I tell you this? Because this idea of global appeal was linked partially to a government policy of the post war era – steel quotas. For manufacturers to access steel, they had to pledge to sell a huge percentage of their cars abroad, I believe it was 90% or thereabouts.
With that in mind, customers in the UK would be waiting years for their cars whilst overseas relatives could access the same car much quicker. In fact, these were hard to come by in 1951 and this example we’re testing today is one of the earliest examples sold in the UK and one of The oldest survivors.
In fact, in 1948, the discerning buyer is advised the cars are for the export market only! Another interesting fact for these phase 1s is that they were a big hitter in Germany, accounting for more than 70% of sales of British cars in 1950.
Another point to note on this, is you’ll notice when we look around the inside, the dash is symmetrical either side. This has been designed with the export market in mind so it can be swapped to LHD with minimum fuss. You see this on Morris Minors too, if you want a familiar car which also employed this mindset.
Power and performance wise we talk about later on and I give you the manufacturers specs as per the literature sold with the car, but it’s worth noting you may see the top speed I give you later on argued because when it was tested by journalists of the time it only reached a max of 78.7mph.
The car was designed by Walter Belgrove, who is sometimes called the man with the magic pencil or the first real British designer. When designing the Standard Vanguard, he’d been told by his superiors to visit London and take design influence from the Plymouth. But where do you find a Plymouth in 40s Britain? The American embassy of course! Belgrove then visited the site and sketched out the Plymouth and from those sketches, the Vanguard was born.
Well loved at the time yet hardly talked about today, the Standard Vanguard was the first all new car to come from Standard after the Second World War. It deserves a lot more attention and recognition for the love and in today’s video I hope we do justice to a car which transported millions of people all over the world.
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