Post-war British cars on display
In the years after World War II, Britain was as dreary and bleak as its infamous gray skies. Though victorious in the war in Europe, London was in ruins, the economy in shambles, and about half a million Britons were dead or missing. All the more unlikely, then, for the country’s automakers to start building some of the most desirable cars the world had ever seen.
Britain’s post-war auto revival was, without exaggeration, a renaissance that would shake the industry. It’s this ascendance that is celebrated in“Britain Can Make It!,’’ the latest exhibit at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline.
“There was a vital need to retool the economy,’’says Sheldon Steele, the museum’s curator.“ The concept was to produce and export in order to get Britain rolling again.’’
Britain lacked any major raw material supplies, so the export of manufactured goods appeared to be the most logical solution. But what to produce? The answer lay across the Pond.
Over the course of the war, more than three million US military personnel had, at some point, been stationed in bases in either southern England or Wales. Many were in a foreign country for the first time, and in addition to falling for the local women, many lusted for the local cars. While American cars were large and heavy, British cars were small and nimble.These diminutive runabouts, like the first MGs, captured the imagination of many
American soldiers, and when they returned from the war, the feeling remained.
“There’s a tremendous love affair that Americans have for British cars, perhaps from our
Anglo-American ties,’’ Steele says. “It was a fascinating time—Britain needing to export these cars, and Americans having the means to buy imported cars.’’
This relationship helped fuel a “British invasion’’ of sports cars, roadsters, and finely crafted cars of all kinds, including those from MG, Morgan, and Sunbeam. Of the notable British brands, the MG may have been the most common. It’s still not unusual to see an MGB cruising a New England street.
While US customers were enjoying the spoils of war, their British allies were not so lucky. This newfound American interest in British automobiles was not a novelty—it was a necessity. One of the slogans from this era was“Export or Die. ’’Every Triumph, every Rolls-Royce, and every Austin-Healey was another step towards rebuilding Britain.
Eventually, Britain would rise from its ashes, just as the rest of Western Europe did in the 1950s and 1960s. However, it was Britain above all that inspired the American car culture after the war. Many car designers admired the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray, but the man behind that car, Bill Mitchell, took inspiration from his personal Jaguar E-Type.
Another icon, the Shelby Cobra, started life as an AC Ace before Carroll Shelby shoehorned a Ford 260-cubic-inch V-8 into its engine bay. Both of these original British cars are on display.
It would be hard not to be inspired by cars like the 1959 Rolls-Royce Shooting Brake, the Jaguar XK 120, or the Vincent Black Shadow, which Steele describes as“the top of the food chain for British motorcycles. ’’There are so many beautiful and intriguing machines on display that it’s very hard to pick a favorite. Steele, after some prying, relented.
“I would have to say the J2X Allard that belonged to Steve McQueen,’’ he says. “Now that’s a car.’’
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