Or maybe "Standard Swallow" because most of the Swallow conversions and
later SS cars were built using Standard components. I don't believe that
Lyons ever actually admitted what it stood for. There were Swift Swallows,
Swallow Sports, Swallow Specials but according to Lord Montagu of Beaulieu
the meaning was never revealed.
John
>There I go again, talking out my bum. Its been years since I read this and
>some of the
>details are a bit vague. The main point I wanted to make is that Sir John
>Black tried to
>buy Morgan and after being rebuffed he bought the rights to Triumph. And
>the rest is ,
>as they say, history.
>
>Dave
>
>P.S. Did you know the SS stands for Swallow Sidecar?
>
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>Dave
>If I might interject on your recent thread about the Standard Motor Company
>interface with Jaguar - then SS Cars? While I wouldn't challenge you on the
>source document you recommended for reading, perhaps I could attempt to
>straighten out what might possibly become mis-information over a period of
>time.
>1. Sir John Black never owned the Standard Motor Company. The original
>owner and founder before Black's time was a man called Reginald Maudslay.
>It was through him that the company became known as STANDARD because he
>wanted to make cars to the highest possible standard. Unfortunately, the
>word Standard has different connotations in different parts of the world -
>and that is why true Standard Cars when sold in North America (the Eight,
>Ten and Pennant) were more usually known as Triumphs, when in fact they
>were Standards through and through. Black, a former Army Captain and a
>qualified lawyer was brought in by the Main Board before the war to do what
>he could to steer the company out of bankruptcy. He succeeded and my own
>father was a very close friend and colleague.
>Throughout Black's time at Standard, I think I am correct in saying it was
>a public company, financially precarious perhaps but nonetheless public.
>2. Certainly, there was rivalry between Black and Lyons at Jaguar.
>Remember, Lyons when he moved SS to Coventry was selling highly attractive
>(for the day) motorcycle side-cars and this business rapidly extended to
>building delightful body variations on other manufacturers chassis and
>engine/driveline assemblies. It was obviously an attractive proposition for
>Lyons to do this because he avoided development costs of his own. Standard
>(under Black's direction) not only made their own cars but also sold these
>complete running chassis to SS/Jaguar and another local bodybuilder called
>Avon. Indeed, the ubiquitous Jaguar six cylinder XK twin cam engine on
>which Bill Heynes and his team worked such wondrous miracles, actually
>started life as a Standard inline six cylinder side valve of 2.5 litres. It
>was Heynes' skills that took that same engine into entirely new stages of
>development and performance. As the world knows, Jaguar went its own way
>and ............ (now its a Ford)
>3. Finally, I must challenge your comment (if I have understood it) that
>Triumph came to Standard as a possible challenge to Jaguar. It may well
>have done as part of the Black/Lyons rivalry but the real issue is that
>Triumph as an entity went bust and Black got to it before Lyons. Indeed
>there is a climate of opinion in Coventry to this day that had Jaguar
>bought Triumph, the Triumph name might have adversely affected Jaguar's
>image and possibly might have led to a two tier Jaguar range - i.e. the
>expensive-er and the cheap-er. As things turned out, on the longer term, I
>feel that Triumph did better in Black's hands than it might have done in
>Lyons's - but what once was, has now gone - for ever and no-one will ever
>know.
>John Macartney
>
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