The other 'VW'

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There is endless fascination in the study of Vintage assembled cars, not necessarily so much for the fairly standardised cars themselves but for the superb cast of characters who created them. For every great businessman and engineer, it seems there was to be found a dozen crooks, chancers and fantasists. Enter Ernest Vernon Varley and John Roberts Woods.

Varley-Woods

The former had a colourful background in canned soup, government surplus goods and harmonicas, while the latter was a minor celebrity thanks to his swashbuckling adventures in the Near East. Like many of the other start-ups that appeared in the immediate wake of the Great War, the unlikely pair felt the time was ripe to grab a share of the motor industry, and in 1919 the Varley-Woods was created. With a chassis made by Turner and a 1.8-litre Dorman engine, it was no more spectacular than anything made prior to the war, but that didn’t stop Varley and Woods charging a premium for it and attempting to dress it up as a Rolls-Royce for the middle-classes.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Varley-Woods only lasted for a year, but it was an eventful year to say the least. Zack Stiling uncovers the history of the sole survivor in the May issue of The Automobile, available now.

Words and photographs by Zack Stiling.

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