The Leyland Eight was a luxury

car A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as ...

produced by

Leyland Motors Leyland Motors Limited (later known as the Leyland Motor Corporation) was a British vehicle manufacturer of lorries, buses and trolleybuses. The company diversified into car manufacturing with its acquisitions of Triumph and Rover in 1960 and 1 ...

from 1920 to 1923. The car was designed by the chief engineer of Leyland Motors,

J.G. Parry-Thomas John Godfrey Parry-Thomas (6 April 1884 – 3 March 1927) was a Welsh engineer and motor-racing driver who at one time held the land speed record. He was the first driver to be killed in pursuit of the land speed record. Early life and ed ...

and his assistant

Reid Railton Reid A. Railton (1895–1977) was a British automotive engineer, and designer of land and water speed record vehicles. Biography Reid Antony Railton was the son of a Manchester stockbroker: Charles Withingon Railton and his wife Charlotte Eliza ...

, and was intended to be the finest car available. It was the first British car with a

straight-eight engine The straight-eight engine (also referred to as an inline-eight engine; abbreviated I8 or L8) is a piston engine with eight cylinders arranged in a straight line along the crankshaft. The number of cylinders and perfect primary and secondary engi ...

. The Eight was introduced to the public at the 1920 International Motor Exhibition at

Olympia, London Olympia London, sometimes referred to as the Olympia Exhibition Centre, is an exhibition centre, event space and conference centre in West Kensington, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, London, England. A range of international ...

, where it was referred to as the "Lion of Olympia".

Engine and transmission

The engine, with cylinder block and upper crankcase cast in one piece, had a single centrally mounted

overhead camshaft An overhead camshaft (OHC) engine is a piston engine where the camshaft is located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier overhead valve engines (OHV), where the camshaft is located below the combustion c ...

hemispherical combustion chamber A hemispherical combustion chamber is a type of combustion chamber in a reciprocating internal combustion engine with a domed cylinder head notionally in the approximate shape of a hemisphere (in reality usually a spheric section thereof). An en ...

s, and an bore. The engine was offered in one of two capacities: with a stroke, producing at 2,500 rpm or with a stroke and twin carburettors, producing at 3,500 rpm. The crankshaft ran in five bearings. Ignition was by coil and distributor rather than magneto which was the more usual British practice at the time. Transmission was through a single plate clutch to a separately mounted four speed gearbox. The rear axle was unconventional with the differential mounted ahead of the axle. The spiral bevel crown wheel and pinion arrangement had two crown wheels each attached to a half shaft allowing them to be arranged at an angle to each other to give the rear wheels a positive camber.

Chassis and suspension

The channel section chassis had suspension by leaf springs at the front and a mix of leaf springs and torsion bars at the rear. At the front semi-elliptical springs were used with radius arms controlling fore and aft movement of the axle. The radius arms were joined by a torsion bar across the front of the chassis to act as an

anti-roll bar An anti-roll bar (roll bar, anti-sway bar, sway bar, stabilizer bar) is a part of many automobile suspensions that helps reduce the body roll of a vehicle during fast cornering or over road irregularities. It connects opposite (left/right) wheels ...

. At the rear the quarter-elliptical springs had their front ends mounted in a boss that was attached to a short transverse torsion bar which controlled the rotation of the boss making the suspension a hybrid arrangement. As at the front linked radius rods provided axle location and anti-roll properties. The brakes, with vacuum servo assistance, were on the rear wheels only.

Coachwork

Factory-made bodies were available in open tourer style with either two or five seats and chassis were also supplied to customers for their choice of coachbuilders which included

Vanden Plas Vanden Plas is the name of coachbuilders who produced bodies for specialist and up-market automobile manufacturers. Latterly the name became a top-end luxury model designation for cars from subsidiaries of British Leyland and the Rover Group, ...

and Windovers. The car was very expensive, the chassis for delivery to a coachbuilder costing £2,500 in 1920 reducing to £1,875 in 1922 and only about 18 were made. It was the most expensive British car of its day. Today, the only example known to exist, a Leyland-Thomas, is one assembled from spares in 1929 and in the collection of the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust (BMIHT) and displayed in the

British Motor Museum The British Motor Museum in Warwickshire, England holds the world's largest collection of historic British cars, with over 300 cars on display from the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust and the Jaguar Heritage Trust. History The creation ...

(formerly the Heritage Motor Centre).

Leyland-Thomas

After amicably leaving Leyland in 1922

J. G. Parry-Thomas John Godfrey Parry-Thomas (6 April 1884 – 3 March 1927) was a Welsh people, Welsh engineer and motor-racing driver who at one time held the land speed record. He was the first driver to be killed in pursuit of the land speed record. Ear ...

moved to premises at

Brooklands Brooklands was a motor racing circuit and aerodrome built near Weybridge in Surrey, England, United Kingdom. It opened in 1907 and was the world's first purpose-built 'banked' motor racing circuit as well as one of Britain's first airfields, ...

race track taking with him at least three chassis and a large quantity of spares. There he built the Leyland-Thomas, a racing special based on the Leyland Eight. After the death of Parry Thomas his premises were taken over by

Thomson & Taylor Thomson & Taylor were a motor-racing engineering and car-building firm, based within the Brooklands race track. They were active between the wars and built several of the famous land speed record breaking cars of the day. Thomas Inventions Devel ...

who built the car now owned by the BMIHT.

Owners

Michael Collins Michael Collins or Mike Collins most commonly refers to: * Michael Collins (Irish leader) (1890–1922), Irish revolutionary leader, soldier, and politician * Michael Collins (astronaut) (1930–2021), American astronaut, member of Apollo 11 and Ge ...

, the Irish politician and revolutionary leader, was travelling in a Leyland Eight when he was fatally shot in 1922. Two cars were ordered by the

Maharaja of Patiala The Maharaja of Patiala was a maharaja in India and the ruler of the princely state of Patiala, a state in British India. The first Maharaja of Patiala was Baba Ala Singh (1695–1765). Yadavindra Singh became the maharaja on 23 March 1938. ...

but are not thought to survive.

References

* {{cite book , title=The Leyland Eight , author=Hugh Tours , year=1966 , series=No. 25, Profile cars , publisher=

Profile Publications Profile or profiles may refer to: Art, entertainment and media Music * ''Profile'' (Jan Akkerman album), 1973 * ''Profile'' (Githead album), 2005 * ''Profile'' (Pat Donohue album), 2005 * ''Profile'' (Duke Pearson album), 1959 * '' ''Profi ...