• Armstrong Siddeleys' first four-cylinder model • Offered from long-term dry storage • Started and driven recently • Requires recommissioning Armstrong Siddeley was created in 1919 by the fusion of the mighty Armstrong Whitworth engineering combine and the Coventry based Siddeley-Deasy Motor Manufacturing Company.

Managing director John Siddeley's son Ernest had toured various car factories in the USA in 1919, and the first Armstrong Siddeley - the 30hp - benefited from knowledge he acquired.

Indeed, the fledgling firm even went so far as to acquire a Marmon Series 34 for evaluation.

Although quite different from the Marmon engine in detail, the six-cylinder Armstrong Siddeley had a lengthy stroke and overhead valves like its American counterpart.

The car's distinctive V-shaped radiator was the work of renowned motoring artist, Frederick Gordon Crosby, while its Sphinx mascot was a carry-over from Siddeley-Deasy, one of whose Knight sleeve valve-engined models had been described a...