George Brough built Brough Superior motorcycles at his works on Haydn Road, Nottingham, from 1919. They were famously called “the Rolls-Royce of motorcycles”, and T. E. Lawrence owned eight of them. In 1935 Brough turned to cars, building about 85 between then and 1939, based on Hudson engines and chassis from Canada. The early cars carried no Brough Superior badges, because he thought them distinctive enough without.
The first model, the 4 Litre of 1935-36, had a 114 bhp Hudson straight-eight and a four-seat drophead body by Atcherley of Birmingham; it could reach 90 mph and 0-60 mph in under 10 seconds. Nineteen were made, and nine survive. When Hudson stopped supplying the eight-cylinder engine and chassis in 1936, Brough switched to the 3.5 Litre with a Hudson straight-six, also offered with a supercharger claimed to give 140 bhp; about 80 were made up to 1939, mostly open cars.
The last Brough Superior car, the XII of 1938, used a Lincoln-Zephyr V12 in a chassis of Brough’s own design, with a saloon body by Charlesworth. Only one was made, and it survives. The Brough Superior name has since been revived for motorcycles, but not for cars.
