Archibald Frazer-Nash, who had earlier co-founded the GN cyclecar company, set up Frazer Nash in 1922 at Kingston upon Thames, Surrey. Its cars used a distinctive multiple-chain transmission, with a separate chain for each gear, that was light, simple and quick to change, and around 350 chain-drive Frazer Nashes were built between 1924 and 1939, many of them for trials, hillclimbs and racing.
The company ran into financial trouble in 1927 and was reformed as AFN Limited. Harold Aldington took control in 1929 and, joined by his brothers Donald and William, moved the business to Isleworth, Middlesex. From 1934 AFN imported and assembled BMWs, sold as Frazer Nash-BMWs, until the Second World War.
After the war the BMW 328 engine design reached Britain through the Bristol connection, and AFN used Bristol engines in its post-war cars, most famously the Le Mans Replica of 1948, of which only about 85 post-war Frazer Nashes were built before car production ended in 1957. AFN became the British importer for Porsche in the 1950s and was sold to Porsche in 1987.
