An Alvis Firefly at the 1925 200 Mile race at Brooklands with Norman Freeman on the left and Belgian racing driver Paul Dutoit on the right. Dutoit used the Firefly to test Dunlop tyres at Brooklands.


M1 and M2, the first to be designed with a warship-size gun to attack enemy ships and dive quickly. The Sea Lords at the Admiralty feared the enemy would learn of M1, so their construction was covered up and the plans hidden. The M-class was not a success, eventually both the gun-equipped M1 and M2, converted into a submarine aircraft carrier with a seaplane hangar in place of the gun, being lost with all hands in accidents.


The Earl of Cottenham was a keen Alvis driver. He’s seen here at the wheel of a front-wheel drive model in 1925 at the Junior Car Club’s 200 Mile race.


28 BROOKLANDS BULLETIN | JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2020


Formation of Alvis Following the disastrous Gallipoli campaign but before Churchill left the Government as First Lord of the Admiralty, he set up the Landship Committee in February 1915. This project was to develop what became the first tank. John may have sat on this committee because of his engineering brilliance, but what is clear is that he joined Siddeley-Deasy in 1915. This car maker had


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