Lea Francis P-type 1929 ready to go and have fun!

Lea-Francis was a small high quality

British manufacturing company which

initially focussed on upmarket bicycles,

motor cycles and later car production. It

was relatively small compared to its main

contemporary rival, Alvis but was often

experimental and highly innovative. It was

particularly successful with some of its

sporting models in the 1920s, for

example the supercharged Hyper which

won the 1928 Ulster TT against major

marques. Brian Sewell described a Lea-

Francis as a ‘Bentley for the poor of

Cheltenham’.

My car, registration number UN 3127 is a

two-seater P-Type with chassis number

13913 and engine number 9422. The P-

Type was first introduced in 1927 with an

entirely new longer wider chassis

developed by Charles Van Eugen giving

better ride quality and road holding. UN

3127 has the rare and more sporty twin-

port Brooklands type of Meadows 4ED

engine compared to the standard P-

Types with single port 4ED engines.

The car was first registered on 4th

December 1929 to David Curwen who

kept the car for more than 35 years. It

had only two more owners until 2006. In

2013 it went to the owner of Oily Motor

Museum in Porlock and I purchased it

shortly after that.

In 2018 Jeremy Brewster completed a full

engine rebuild including crankcase, twin

port heads and raised compression ratio

resulting in estimated 70 brake horse

power. The body and trim have also been restored and painted in Burgundy.