User:Yadsalohcin/Offord&Sons

User:Yadsalohcin/Offord&Sons

Offord:

Table of Contents

1 Company history

2 Motor vehicle construction

2.1 Names of the Harrington

2.2 Brand names Offord

3 References

4 Weblinks

5 Single-point information

Offord & Sons was a British commissioning company and producer of car bodies based in the West End of London. In the first half of the 20th century, the family-owned company [1] produced primarily hand-made and tailor-made superstructures for British and US high-class vehicles.

Company history

Offord & Sons was founded in 1791. The company first produced carriages. In the 19th century it became a royal court supplier and was temporarily responsible for the maintenance of the carriages in the royal vehicle fleet (Royal Mews). [1] In 1895 the first car body was produced. Offord showed her the same year at the Horseless Carriage Exhibition in Crystal Palace.

Between 1901 and 1902, the company produced complete automobiles, which were marketed as Harrington. [2] Electric cars were built in 1903. They bore the brand name Offord [3]; A similar vehicle had already been presented at the Horseless Carriage Exhibition in 1896, which was held at the Imperial Institute in London in 1896. [4]

After the end of the First World War, Offord produced complex individual bodies for high-priced chassis. At the same time, the company tried to produce car bodies for cheaper chassis even in larger series. For this purpose, Offord took over the company, which was based in Stevenage, Gazeley, who had developed a process for the series production of light all-weather (featherlights). The superstructures were designed for chassis from Ford and Chevrolet. The project failed, however, and Offord had to sell the Gazeley plants at a high loss. There followed an insolvency of the company, which led to the restructuring of the company. [5]

From then on, Offord did not have his own workshops anymore. The company limited itself to designing individual car bodies for Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Packard or Stutz chassis on customer request. With the construction of the craft bodies each subcontractor as R. Harrison & Son, T.H. were then Gill Carlton and Lancefield commissioned. In the 1930s, Offord finally designed a series of standard carriages for Clement Talbot and Vauxhall, which were included in the respective catalogs. [5] The last design of Offords was a convertible set-up for Alvis, which was produced in several copies from 1936 to 1939. [6]

In 1939, Offord ceased operations. However, in the following years, some artisans continued to look after the vehicles of the British royal house.