Background

It all began when Bill Lyons met William Walmsley who had just moved to Blackpool from Stockport. They both lived in King Edward Avenue, Blackpool and were interested in motorcycles. Bill Lyons was a motorcycle enthusiast, and William Walmsley built sidecars in his parents’ garage, and attached them to reconditioned motorcycles. Bill met William when he purchased a sidecar for his own motorcycle. He persuaded him to expand the business with himself as a partner.

On 4th September, 1922 they formed the Swallow Sidecar Company, funded by financial backing from both their families and a bank overdraft. They began to produce sidecars in a 2 storey building in Bloomfield Road, with 8 employees. Space soon became a problem and two other factory buildings were acquired, one in Woodfield Road, and another in John Street.

They decided to extend their product range to include car bodies, which meant that a much larger factory was essential. As luck would have it, a modern purpose-built coachbuilding factory was up for sale at 41 Cocker Street. Walmsley’s father had just sold his coal business and so decided to invest the proceeds in the building, which he purchased, and rented to Swallow for £325 a year. Late in 1926 the company vacated their other premises and moved into the building, which was ideal for their purpose. In 1927 the company name was changed to The Swallow Sidecar and Coach Building Company.

One of Swallow’s suppliers was A.J.S. of Wolverhampton. A.J.S. built sidecars at Lower Walsall Street Works and sold them under the C. W. Hayward name, later changed to “Graiseley” sidecars. Swallow was one of the company’s best sidecar customers.

Swallow began to produce the Austin Seven Swallow car, built on a standard Austin chassis. After receiving an order for 500, and only being able to produce two a day, the decision was taken to move to a larger factory in order to expand production.

From Blackpool to Coventry

The business moved to an old 40,000sqft. ammunition factory at Foleshill in Coventry, where there was plenty of space, a large skilled workforce on the doorstep, and in close proximity to the suppliers, which would reduce transport costs. The move was made late in 1928, and production increased to around 50 cars a week. Although the company still made sidecars, the name was changed yet again, to the Swallow Coachbuilding Company. Several new models followed, and the company began to build complete cars.

Bill Lyons’ wanted the company to go public, but William Walmsley would have none of it. As a result he decided to let Bill Lyons buy him out, leaving Lyons in sole charge. By the end of 1934 1,800 cars a year were leaving the factory.

In 1935 Bill Lyons founded S.S. Cars Limited. He put the Swallow Coachbuilding Company into voluntary liquidation, and founded the Swallow Coachbuilding Company (1935) Limited. S.S. Cars Limited concentrated on manufacturing cars and later became Jaguar. The Swallow Coachbuilding Company (1935) Limited continued to make sidecars, and was sold to the Helliwell Group when Jaguar was formed in 1945.