1930 Invicta 4½-Litre Series 'A' High Chassis Tourer by Corsica
Chassis no. A91 · Engine no. 7358 · UK registration FB 8906
• One of the earliest Series 'A' high-chassis cars, built in 1930 and first registered in January 1931
• Four-seat open tourer coachwork by Corsica of London; the only Corsica-bodied high-chassis Invicta known to us
• Retains its original engine, no. 7358, rebuilt during a nine-year mechanical refurbishment documented by invoices and photographs
• Documented history from 1965; restored by the noted Irish collector David Dunn and campaigned in two Gordon Bennett Rallies
• Shown at the 75th Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in August 2026 after running the Pebble Beach Tour d'Elegance
• Accompanied by a FIVA Identity Card
Specifications: 4,467 cc Meadows overhead-valve inline six-cylinder engine with dual ignition, four-speed manual transmission, semi-elliptic leaf-spring suspension, four-wheel drum brakes. Right-hand drive.
Noel Macklin's Invicta was built around a single idea: a car with the effortless top-gear pull of the big American engines and the quality of the finest British coachbuilt cars. Backed by Oliver Lyle of the sugar family and proven by Violette Cordery's endurance records, the marque twice won the RAC's Dewar Trophy before the 4½-Litre appeared in 1928, built around Henry Meadows' 4,467 cc six. Few cars of the period covered ground so quickly with so little effort — the Cordery sisters made the run from London to Edinburgh without once changing out of top — and Donald Healey's class win in the 1930 Alpine Trial and outright victory in the 1931 Monte Carlo Rally settled the marque's competition credentials. The high-chassis Series 'A' of 1930 shares its engine and formidable frame with the celebrated low-chassis S-Type; where the S-Type was built for speed, the high chassis was built for distance, with the room and comfort to carry four people across a continent.
Corsica Coachworks, a small London firm remembered for its sporting bodies on Bugatti, Alfa Romeo and Daimler chassis, built exactly what its customers asked for, and A91 is a case in point: a four-seat open tourer with a rear-mounted spare and the proportions of a car meant to be driven hard and far. We know of no other high-chassis Invicta bodied by Corsica. A classified advertisement in the Evening Standard of September 1949, offering a Corsica-bodied 4½-litre Invicta in black from an address in Cadogan Lane, SW1, we believe records this car in London in the postwar years.
The car's documented history begins with Roger Sweetland of Peterborough, believed to have acquired it in 1965 and to have kept it for some three decades before it joined the West Collection in Devon. At the collection's dispersal in 1998 it was bought by David Dunn, among the best-known collectors in Ireland, who devoted seven years to a comprehensive restoration, finishing the car in the black-over-red livery it wears today, and then put it to proper use: some 3,500 miles of touring, including two of the Irish Veteran & Vintage Car Club's Gordon Bennett Rallies.
In 2013 the Invicta passed to a member of the Invicta Owners' Club in England who, over the following nine years, had the car gone through end to end by marque specialists including Traction Seabert, Paul Kitcher and Coventry Boring. The original engine was rebuilt; the gearbox, driveline, axles, suspension and steering were overhauled; the electrics were renewed throughout; and a full-flow oil filter was added for long-distance peace of mind. The invoices and a photographic record of the work accompany the car. Sorted and reliable, it was driven extensively on tours through Britain and Europe before joining the collection of a connoisseur of British sports and racing cars in 2023.
The car came to the United States in late 2025 and within the year was accepted for the 75th Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, where it was shown on the 18th fairway on August 16, 2026 after running the Pebble Beach Tour d'Elegance along the Monterey coast — as good a demonstration of a prewar car's readiness for the road as there is. The indoor photographs that accompany this listing were taken in Roy Lichtenstein's former studio in Southampton, New York.
Accompanied by its FIVA Identity Card, the UK registration it has carried since 1931 and the file of its mechanical refurbishment, A91 is an early, correctly bodied high-chassis Invicta that has been restored, mechanically renewed and proven on the road. It offers everything that makes the S-Type so coveted — the Meadows engine, the quality of construction, the effortless way it covers ground — at a far friendlier price, and with four full seats it is the Invicta to take on a long road with friends.
