John from U.K. ; a Lanchester! They cost more than a Rolls I believe. Bet you wish you still had it? Lagopus.....
I think that may be true of Lanchester's early (independent) days. However, they became (with Daimler) part of the BSA group (as in gunmaking BSA) and whilst the Daimler brand remained 'upmarket', the Lanchester brand was used on a range of cheaper cars. The model my grandparents had was a 10 H.P. model, and as such had a basic 4 cylinder engine of about 1.5 litres, but coupled with the Daimler/Lanchester 'fluid' transmission (which was bacically an epicyclic gearbox with a fluid coupling replacing the clutch). It would have been a low to medium priced car.
BSA's chairman was a man called Sir Bernard Docker. His wife, Lady Nora Docker has specially made gold trimmed Daimlers with fancy Zebra skin upholstery. Many of Daimler's traditional customers (including the Royal family who had always been Daimler customers) thought this very vulgar and moved to other makes, notably Rolls Royce and Bentley and the Daimler brand struggled (though the actual cars were quite good) and was eventually bought by Sir William Lyons of Jaguar fame.
The late Queen Mother remained loyal to Daimler, but H.M the Queen has used Rolls Royce and later Bentley for her formal State cars, and nowadays seems to use Range Rover for less formal use.
