1950 Lea Francis

John Ashton

 

1950 Lea Francis

 

John’s Car

In December 1964 a 1950 Lea Francis was advertised at Speers Point. A friend at work encouraged me to have a look at it. A high school English Master was selling it. I bought it registered for £25. This car was one of the most advanced cars in the world at that time. I cannot find the photo of mine but it was the same as the car in the photo with black duco not in as good condition and no fog lights or radio. This car featured a 2.5 litre twin side cam engine and was the first to have a cross flow head with hemispherical combustion chambers and angled overhead valves as designed by their chief engineer Albert Ludgate who also invented extractors.

Only 80 of these sedans were made. They also featured torsion bar independent front suspension and an aluminium coach built body built over a wooden frame, hydraulic front brakes with mechanical back brakes, leather seats, walnut dash, sun roof and built in mechanical jacking system to make it easier to change a flat tyre. The Armstrong Siddeley 4 speed manual transmission was used. The clocked top official speed for the car was 105 mph. I took mine up to 95 mph then I decided that was fast enough. It hadn’t run out of puff but I had run out of straight road. 

Lea Francis also made around 250 of the 2.5 litre roadsters which are very collectable. The majority of the Lea Francis cars at that time cars had the 1.75 litre engine of similar design. I sold the car in 1970 and it was last seen in Broke in 1988. The engine number was 5224 and chassis number 5239. If anyone knows of its whereabouts now please let me know.

John Ashton

April, 2020