38e and 104 Armstrong Siddeley Coupé (1946-55)

A very nice real Armstrong Siddeley Coup, as seen at the OldtimerFestivalHuizen, yesterday. Kind regards, Jan

Jan Nice photographs as well as a nice comparison! Have never seen an Armstrong-Siddeley 'in the flesh' so to speak! Thought I would add my Armstrong-Siddeley to the catalogue picture!As I wrote many moons ago in another Topic, somewhere, the Armstrong-Siddeley was my favourite Dinky Toy for quite some time, as it had seats and a steering wheel when my brothers only had 'ordinary' Dinky Toys with nothing inside! Of course, I invariably scored a thumping from them for bringing that to their attention - again and again! Kind regards Bruce (150) 20160919/979/0344

Jan---Very nice to see a photo of the real car......do not see them very often. As we can see, Dinky made a quite good model. I believe this was the last issue of the 38 series.Best regards, Terry

Now I remember having seen one in the opposite colour - black - on 5 September 2004, during a nice weekend in Norwich, staying with David Cooke. It was an 'Indian Summer' then, which we do experience once again at this moment, resulting in many cheerful, colourful, bright photos of this classic cars event. And here is the picture I dug up:

Thanks, Bruce, for the information in text and fine pictures! However nice the present-day photos and (restored) vehicles may be, I certainly prefer those contemporary, mostly black and white pictures of the original cars in their original epoch and environment, like the wonderful couple on top of your new contribution. Issued in December 1946, the Armstrong Siddeley Coup was the first truly post-war Dinky Toys car model. All other nos. 38 were designed pre-war, both the models themselves and (of course) their real-world 1:1 prototypes. In fact, no. 38e Armstrong Siddeley Coup was the replacement of the June 1939 announced but never produced no. 38e Triumph Dolomite Roadster. Kind regards, Jan

The week that World War II ended in Europe, Armstrong Siddeley introduced its first post-war models; these were the Lancaster four-door saloon, and the Hurricane drop head coupe, recognised today as Dinky Toys 38e Armstrong Siddeley. The names of these models echoed the names of aircraft produced by the Hawker Siddeley Group (the name adopted by the company in 1935) during the war. These cars all used a 2-litre six-cylinder (16 hp) engines, increased to 2.3-litre (18 hp) engines in 1949. From 1949 to 1952 two commercial variants of the 18 hp cars were produced, primarily for export to Australia where a number of these unique vehicles have been beautifully preserved. The Utility Coup was a conventional coupe utility style vehicle, while the Station Coup was effectively a dual cab vehicle, although it still retained only two doors. However, it did have two rows of seating to accommodate up to four adults. Now wouldnt that utility make a unique Dinky Toy?! But it is nice to finally locate a picture of an Armstrong Siddeley in green, although not quite the same colour as my Dinky Toy!! And not to mention that the above is a 1952 model! But here is a true-blue, (actually true-black!) 1946 Armstrong Siddeley Hurricane Drop Head Coupe, complete with its gleaning white-wall tyres. The Dinky Toys 38e Armstrong Siddeley was available from December 1946 until late 1948 in the United Kingdom, until 1951 in Australia and 1955 in the United States as the 104 Armstrong Siddeley until 1956. Bruce (150) 20160921/981/0200

Thanks Jan for your always welcome comments, and in particular for including those extracts from catalogues and price lists. I can fully understand and appreciate why Meccano dropped the Triumph Dolomite in favour of the Armstrong Siddeley as the latter was 'more modern' as well as a tremendously well-engineered motorcar coming from a factory with a very famous heritage. It is surprising that the Armstrong Siddeley Lancaster or the later cars such as the Sapphire or Star Sapphire were never considered as a contender for the Dinky range - or were they? It is also interesting that Meccano never provided the 38e with its full title, Armstrong Siddeley Hurricane Coupe. (It was actually called a Drop Head Coupe, but I guess we can live without the 'drop head'!) With the record of the Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft fresh in people's memories as Armstrong Siddeley was a division of Hawker Siddeley (Aircraft) and had been thus since 1935 it is surprising that Meccano did not capitalize on the word 'Hurricane', unless they had been specifically asked by Armstrong Siddeley not to use the word, leaving Hurricane in everybody's mind as the famous fighter aircraft. We will never know. One final word - when did 'we' start using a hyphen between Armstrong and Siddeley as in the title for this Topic? I know I have used a hyphen for years, and it was only while researching the 38e that I discovered 'there ain't no hyphen!' small matter, I know, but it is intriguing why it was two words. The actual story of the company itself does explain the absence of a hyphen, going back to the early days of the formation in 1902 of Siddeley Sidecars by John Davenport Siddeley and then the formation of Siddeley-Deasy Motor Company (note the hyphen this time denoting the combining of two individual's names) in 1909 until it was acquired by Armstrong Whitworth Development Company in May 1919 with the name changing for the motor car division to Armstrong Siddeley Motors Ltd, the start of the 'no hyphen' indicating that both Armstrong and Siddeley were separate business names rather than two individuals. Bruce (150) 20160921/982/1140

Bruce----Thank you very much for the splendid article on the Armstrong Siddeley, and the several nice photos with it. It really was a pretty handsome car, and made in several models as you have shown. it's always nice to learn a little history of our models and their prototypes. Best regards,Terry

Good idea to change the header. I just deleted the hyphen and added the accent aigu to Coup! Kind regards, Jan

My little contribution to this topic. A really nice car indeed. Kind regards Richard

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A nice gathering of big Dinky Toys. In fact they really do look like Dinky Toys. Thanks Jacques! Kind regards, Jan