Alvis is doing more continuation cars

Bearded people – you might remember that a few years ago, Alvis (the old British carmaker operational between 1919 and the late Sixtes) was effectively revived. Now called The Alvis Car Company, in 2012 it began building continuation cars – almost entirely faithful brand-new examples of the models it had been making decades previously. They even let us drive one.

Now it’s announced this range of continuation cars is to be expanded, and that some will use chassis and engine blocks stored since the marque’s original factory closed in 1968. Yep – Alvis’ post-war 3.0-litre continuation models will use chassis and engines components stored in crates for over 50 years.

Three bodystyles will be available - Super Coupe, Cabriolet and Drop Head Coupe – all using aluminium panels and ash frames, mounted on original steel chassis. Meanwhile the pre-war, 4.3-litre cars will be available in Bertelli Sports Coupe, Lancefield Concealed Hood and Vanden Plas Tourer bodystyles.

Each continuation car takes up to 5,000 hours to build and, crucially, all are totally road legal thanks to fuel injection, modern engine management systems and other clever workarounds (many continuation cars, from the likes of Aston Martin, can only be driven on tracks or private land). Save for those necessary modifications, all these cars are built to the exact same specs as the originals.

You even get a three-year warranty, while air-conditioning, power steering and automatic gearboxes are available on some models.

No word on prices, but given the time and effort involved in building them, we can’t imagine they’re especially cheap. Fair.