Carbodies : A British Motor Industry Survivor

It might be argued that many aspects of the history of the British motor industry would be very different if the Coventry coachbuilding company of Carbodies had not existed. Certainly the company’s involvement as a jobbing coachbuilder with the MG Car Company, Alvis, Invicta, Railton and the Rootes Group, and its early grasp of the importance of pressed steel in car body construction, played an important part in its earlier story. Its ownership by BSA as a body supplier for Daimler and its job of building Austin taxicabs ensured its importance in the post-war years.

Carbodies was indeed a survivor, embracing new technologies, the arrival of which brought down its contemporaries in the 1930s, and finding its own niche markets of converting saloon cars into convertibles and estate cars and, most important of all, acquiring the rights to the Austin FX4 taxi and becoming a vehicle manufacturer in its own right. It is now known as the London Electric Vehicle Company Ltd, part of the Geely group and makes electric London taxis.