[-GS-]

Originally Posted by V-16

Inspite of maintaining its British RHD and ample leather and wood trimmings, It was built in Switzerland by the Swiss coach builder Hermann Graber who was the official importer of Alvis in the early 50s. But from 1958 Alvis bodies were built by Park Ward (alongside Graber specials) who also built bodies for Rolls and Bentley.

This is what I read on the Alvis Owner Club Website.

The Alvis car division was consistently losing money and had become more or less a public relations exercise and the TC 21/100 was looking very dated. Further investment in car production looked unlikely given the success of the other divisions. No-one would have believed that the Three Litre would simply refuse to die, and that it had over ten years of production and development life left in it yet. It was Hermann Graber who came to the rescue. He had been building small numbers of very elegant bodies on Three Litre chassis since the early 1950s, for sale to his Swiss customers at high prices. These cars were more or less "one-offs", and were light, strong and modern looking. Alvis hoped that they would be able to have bodies built in series to Graber's design in the UK substantially cheaper than the Swiss articles. Accordingly two cars were sent to Switzerland for prototype bodies to be built, then returned to the UK, complete with the necessary jigs and patterns for series production.

A few cars were made, but whilst they were much admired and discussed, they were simply too expensive. The situation was only retrieved by going to Rolls-Royce subsidiary Mulliner Park Ward to redesign the body to enable its production, suitably modified for the British market, at a lower price. This was achieved in no uncertain manner and the cars sold well. Alvis' independence came to an end in 1965 when the company was taken over by Rover, and in turn became part of the British Leyland empire a couple of years later. By now most of the company's production was their highly successful ranges of armoured vehicles. The car division carried on until 1967, along with the Aero Engine department, which had gradually lost ground as more and more aircraft became powered by gas turbine engines.