Description Genuine Hyper with an interesting history; Cozette blower rebuild in 2016; VSCC papers; extremely competitive car in fine order Richard Lea and Graham Francis set up in a small workshop in Coventry in 1895 to produce high quality bicycles.

These were in great demand and the little firm soon moved to larger premises and made the obvious move into motorcycles.

By 1919 they had introduced a car of their own design, although they had an agreement with Southport-based Vulcan to share many components in order to keep costs to a minimum.

Lea-Francis also chose Meadows engines to power their cars, which proved a shrewd move as they were extremely well-engineered – the later 4ED having enormous tuning potential.

A sporting image began to appear from around 1925, leading to the introduction of the Cozette-blown S-Type Hyper.

Britain’s first supercharged production car, a Hyper won the 1928 Ulster TT, a 30-lap race over 13.5 miles on the roads of Northern Ireland, in the hands of...