British and European Car Spotters Guide - 1955

With the memories of the difficult post-war years hopefully beginning to fade, the British motor industry moved into the second half of the fifties intent on keeping and expanding its world trade despite the growing threat of intensive competition from other countries. After developing and producing a number of small economy saloons during the early fifties, the industry generally seemed to turn its attention to enlarging and improving the larger cars for 1955. Austin replaced their four-cylinder Hereford with the six-cylinder A90 Westminster; Daimler added five new large models to their range; Aston Martin, Bentley, Jaguar and Rolls-Royce increased the power of their engines; Morris introduced the six-cylinder Isis and Wolseley the Six/Ninety.

There was also strong evidence that British manufacturers were beginning to recognize what the Americans had accepted years before-that women have a considerable say where the potential car buyer is concerned. Sadly a number of car manufacturers went the way of all flesh during the latter part of 1954 or in 1955, namely Lea-Francis, Jowett and Swallow. Lanchester followed soon after. Of the 905,623 cars produced during the year, 388,564 were exported and 517,059 were UK registrations (including 5,639 hackneys). Imports were, however, more than double the previous year's-11, 131 v. 4660 cars of 1953, did not in fact reach the production stage until later the following year by which time a number of modifications had been made.