Talk:Alvis Speed 20

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Use in Fiction

Dornford Yates often mentioned a fictional car called the ‘Lowland’ in his interwar thrillers. But what was it?

Here is some informed speculation:

[To discover the identity of the ‘Lowland’] I have examined and discarded car after car of that period (for instance the Alvis Firebird was too low both in maximum speed and second-hand value). At one time I favoured the 3 1/2-litre Rolls version Bentley, but “She Painted Her Face” corrected me. In that book, published in 1937, assuming the action to take place some 12 months previously, a two-year-old Lowland’s “fair market value” was £350. which was too low for the Bentley but almost exactly right for my second choice—. the Speed Twenty Alvis. From memory, I believe the Lowland “snarled” at speed, which again excludes the Bentley. I will, however, add that the Speed Twenty had a very pleasant exhaust note !

-Formby-. A.L.D. Temple, in the UK magazine ‘Motor Sport’ for May, 1955.

If this can be verified, it could improve the article, maybe a ‘use in fiction’ section. I have read some of the books, and Yates could certainly have had the Alvis in mind. The 2009 story “The Paradise Waltz” by Jessica Stirling, uses the Alvis by name, and could also be added. 31.94.17.166 (talk) 18:01, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yates mentions the Lowland in Adele & Co., published in 1931 and written before the Speed 20 appeared. In any case Lowland is presumably a marque rather than a model name. The 1955 Motor Sport article suggests that Yates may have taken the name from the US make Overland, but that was extinct by 1926. (https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/april-1955/26/the-motor-car-in-fiction-2/) Yates did not know a lot about cars and probably had no specific make in mind. Alvis would fit the bill as a British car of good quality and performance, and a certain prestige, at moderate cost (half the price of a Bentley even for the glamorous Speed and 4.3 models of the Thirties), but there might be other contenders.