Broken down in Bristol? Help is at hand...

The tow truck is a 20hp Armstrong-Siddeley from 1930-31, that is pre-New 20hp.
From the peak over the windscreen and the windscreen itself, it is almost certainly a rebodied saloon, though this was almost certainly done professionally.
The wings (front and rear) and running boards appear to be original.

Thank you to my friend Bill Smith for his invaluable input.

Regards, Peter Maguire.

C. Allen and Son Ltd started as a Taunton metal-casting, fabricating and general engineering business established c.1796. From then until perhaps WWII, it offered a broad catalogue of transport, agricultural and municipal metalwork.

A 1940s obituary of MD Arthur Clifford Allen said that as early as 1900 their foundry had set up a separate division, “The Chassis Construction Company” (C.C.C.), to “make” car chassis and sell them to local coachbuilders but it seems only to have bought in French chassis and engines, the former of a make only available after 1902. One known customer for chassis parts was the nearby Taunton-based, Bridgewater Motor Company.

Complete C. C. C. cars were reportedly only made in 1906 and 1907, how many unknown but at the 1906 Cordingly Show in Islington, C.C.C. displayed two Malicet et Blin chassis with 20 h.p. and 30 h.p. Ballot engines, Hele-Shaw’s new multi-disc clutches and live axles, the 30 h.p. also available with chain drive; they were “well finished and moderately priced.” An 18-22 h.p. C.C.C car competed in the June 1907s Irish trial, driven by Mr. A. R. Armitage who was associated with the C.C.C. business and was the Chairman of the Somerset Automobile Club. He achieved top marks and was 3rd and 4th in the two hill-climb sections.

The Allen family had owned an 8 h.p. Di Dion in 1904 and ran it in the 1905 Taunton carnival parade. In 1906, C. Allen and Son were listed by the Gladiator Company of 8-9 Long Acre, London as an agent for their 12 h.p. and 24-32 h.p. landaulette models and were named as the official repairers for the Somerset Automobile Club and the Automobile Club of Great Britain. By 1908, their premises at Tone Bridge, Taunton was often referred to as a motor garage and “Tone Bridge Motor Works”, was awarded the Automobile Club’s rare “Special Repairs Certificate” in 1910. General foundry work remained a priority and even in 1914 they advertised themselves as “Automobile and General Engineers and Ironfounders, Tone Bridge Foundry”. Much war work on munitions and agricultural food production was taken on.

Although the foundry continued, the company was fully into garage operations at Tone Bridge by 1920. They were agents for General Motor’s Chevrolets, Buicks and Oaklands for much of that decade. These arrived in knocked-down form and were built up on the premises. By 1924 they had opened a garage at 16 Tavistock Road, Plymouth, which became the regional Armstrong Siddeley service depot, at 105 Tavistock Road by 1927 a Chevrolet commercials depot and shortly premises at Park Street, Plymouth, before opening at 159 Whiteladies Road, Bristol in 1929. There for 1930 they were promoting Armstrong Siddeleys and in that decade were official stockists of Vauxhall, Austin, Morris, Singer and Standard, plus Bedford Trucks. Post-WWII, Standard was a prominent marque but servicing and spares for all their pre-war models were advertised.

A sales address for Bristol became Berkeley Square in 1948 and in the 1950s also “top of Park Street”, where new Fords were sold. The Berkeley premises was joined by one on Blackboy Hill and a new one ex-Taylors near the cinema in Whiteladies Road in 1960 when new Armstrong Siddeleys and Singers were for sale. Disc-braked Triumph Heralds were for sale in 1962 and Singer Chamois at Berkeley Square in 1966 but the business ceased advertising by 1973.

The Cathedral Garage business was not as old as C. Allen’s but with its proprietors starting Edwardian car businesses, it became one of the biggest in Bristol. Howard Stephens was a local pioneer motorist said to have started in Rupert Street but he had a garage on St. George’s Road, College Green by 1913, selling a wide range of second-hand cars and held agencies at Berkeley Avenue, Park Street for Swift, Siddeley-Deasey, Hupmobile and Standard.

His business partner to be, Mr. F. G. Cox, opened a garage in 1905 in Perry Street, Bristol where he lived above his workshop. Cox was a successful competitor in local motoring events in his Morgan Runabout, winning the only Gold Medal in the 1914 Bristol-Land’s End-Bristol Trial. He was an agent for Ford, Morgan, Trumbull and more in 1915 and was selling Cubitt cars from the Colston Garage, Colston Street in 1919. In that year he and Stephens joined there and at Berkeley Avenue, top of Park Street while a larger garage was being built for them on more land the two had obtained between St. George’s Road and Anchor Street. They moved into their newly constructed and named Cathedral Garage in 1923.

At first advertised by “F. G. Cox and Co. with Howard Stephens Ltd.” it held agencies for Armstrong Siddeley, Standard and Lagonda but also advertised a wide range of second-hand cars, motorcycles, combinations and commercials. It became Cox and Stephens Ltd., Cathedral Garage during 1924 and was a Hillman agency during the later 1920s. At the beginning of the 1930s, agents for Standard cars, Cathedral sold over 600 in 1932. Taking on more Rootes products, Commer commercials appeared mid-1930s and Humber was added in 1939.

The garage had a 265-foot frontage and two floors with pillarless roof span on St. George’s Road and by the end of the 1920s employed 100 staff. It was progressively enlarged to Anchor Road behind, which gave it extensive covered workspace and access there. In 1939 a £100,000 expansion to four acres was completed, including a new Anchor Road showroom. The business survived WWII, the '50s, '60s and '70s, and was still advertising up to 1988 when it became Swan National Motors.

From the 1920s Cathedral maintained a fleet of rescue and recovery vehicles, including what they described in 1928 as a “breakdown motor ambulance”, a tow-truck “equipped to deal with every kind of smash-up.” In the photo these may be parked outside the later Anchor Road buildings that opened onto College Road.

Armstrong Siddeley may connect these two garages. During the 1920s A-S advertised its “Bristol Service Depot, Anchor Road, Lower College Green”, then in the 1930s its service depot was at Greville Road, North Street, Bedminster, Bristol, which appeared on C. Allen’s adverts and when A-S closed that in September 1932 C. Allen’s 26-28 Kings Parade Avenue depot took over, start-dating that photo.

I know that my grandfather had a salvage yard in the east of the Netherlands. When he died in the ‘80s, my dad and brothers had to clear the place. There was a Studebaker Big Eight tow-truck conversion with Carl Seisz headlights (from the Grosser Mercedes) and a weaver-crane on the back. Next there was a Presto chassis with a Model T engine and massive wood wheels and a big crane on the back. For easy cranking there was a four-speed Model A truck gearbox. As a kid, those where big, massive trucks. The pitiable thing is I have no pictures. Those where the days when every clever guy was an engineer.