Crayford Engineering (more commonly known simply as Crayford) was an

automobile 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 ...

coachbuilder A coachbuilder or body-maker is someone who manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles.Construction has always been a skilled trade requiring a relatively lightweight product with sufficient strength. The manufacture of necessarily ...

based in Westerham,

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England and formed in 1962 by Jeffrey Smith (engineer and designer) and David McMullan, (sales). In the 1970s, a subdivision within the company, called Crayford Auto Developments, Ltd., was established for automobiles. The company specialized in converting European

coupés A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors. The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the French past parti ...

and saloons into

convertible A convertible or cabriolet () is a passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary among eras and manufacturers. A convertible car's design allows an open-air driving ex ...

s and

estates Estate or The Estate may refer to: Law * Estate (law), a term in common law for a person's property, entitlements and obligations * Estates of the realm, a broad social category in the histories of certain countries. ** The Estates, representa ...

. Notable products included the convertible

Mini The Mini is a small, two-door, four-seat car, developed as ADO15, and produced by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and its successors, from 1959 through 2000. Minus a brief hiatus, original Minis were built for four decades and sold during ...

, BMC 1100/1300 convertible, convertible

Corsair A corsair is a privateer or pirate, especially: * Barbary corsair, Ottoman and Berber pirates and privateers operating from North Africa * French corsairs, privateers operating on behalf of the French crown Corsair may also refer to: Arts an ...

, Cabriolet Corsair, Cabriolet

Capri Capri ( , ; ; ) is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrento Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. The main town of Capri that is located on the island shares the name. It has bee ...

, the rare

Triumph TR7 The Triumph TR7 is a sports car manufactured in the United Kingdom from September 1974 to October 1981 by British Leyland Motor Corporation (BLMC), which changed its name to British Leyland (BL) in 1975. The car was launched in the United State ...

Tracer Estate, and a Princess hatchback conversion, a commonly accepted principle for a car that appeared to be, but was not, a hatchback to begin with. Other lesser-known conversions from Crayford included the Tempest, a convertible Volkswagen Scirocco, a

Ford Cortina The Ford Cortina is a medium-sized family car that was built initially by Ford of Britain, and then Ford of Europe in various guises from 1962 to 1982, and was the United Kingdom's best-selling car of the 1970s. The Cortina was produced in fi ...

Mk V Convertible, and a Mercedes S-Class Estate. In 1966 the company converted, for the Heinz food company, 57 Wolseley Hornet Mini-derived cars to convertibles, to be given as prizes in a competition. The cars designed and created by Jeffrey Smith were featured in the Olympic Closing Ceremony in London 2012. Crayford also did a series of Ford convertibles, including the Cortina Mk I, Cortina Mk II, Cortina Cabriolet Mk2 and Corsair Convertible, Corsair Cabriolet and Capri Cabriolet. A number of Mercedes-Benz W116s were converted to station wagons by Crayford. Most of the conversion body parts and glass used came from the contemporary Ford Granada.

References

External links

The converters: Crayford Engineering
– includes a list of Crayford's conversions of Austin, Morris, MG, Rover, and Triumph cars.
1980 Crayford Tempest
– a convertible Volkswagen Scirocco
Crayford Convertible Car Club
– official site Coachbuilders of the United Kingdom Companies based in Kent 1962 establishments in England {{manufacturing-company-stub