Description
This is lot number 506 in the Bonhams Beaulieu Sale on September 14th, please see the Bonhams website for full details.
Registered with the VCC of GB
Offered from long-term dry storage
Started and driven recently
Requires recommissioning
Although long since departed, Wolseley was one of Britain's foremost makes throughout the Edwardian period and into the 1920s. The company had been founded by Irish-born Frederick York Wolseley in Sydney, Australia in 1887 to manufacture sheep-shearing equipment. Two years later a subsidiary was set up in Birmingham, England where works manager Herbert Austin would be responsible for the first Wolseley motor car, a three-wheeler built on Léon Bollée lines, in 1896.
Early Wolseleys featured horizontal engines, but it was with the introduction of vertical-engined multi-cylinder cars in the Edwardian era that Wolseley earned its reputation for finely engineered, smooth and powerful transport. By this time Herbert Austin had left, his place being taken by John D Siddeley whose company - taken over by Wolseley in 1904 - had been making vertical-engined cars based on the French Peugeot. Siddeley forged ahead with an ever-expanding range of vertical-engined models, which for the next few years were marketed under the 'Wolseley-Siddeley' name, reverting to plain 'Wolseley' after Siddeley's departure in 1909.
Registered with the VCC of GB, this Wolseley-Siddeley has been laid up in a heated garage for several years. Bonhams was able to start the car recently and it drove. Recommissioning will be required before any extended use. The V5C has been lost so the successful purchaser will need to obtain a replacement.
