The Standard Motor Company was incorporated on 2 March 1903 by Reginald Maudslay and started out in Much Park Street, Coventry. A new works at Canley, on the edge of the city, opened on 1 July 1916 and became its main site. Between the wars Standard built a wide range of dependable family cars.
During the Second World War Standard built aircraft and other war material at Canley and at its Banner Lane shadow factory, where engine production began in 1940. It bought the Triumph name and assets in the mid-1940s (sources give 1944 or 1945) and began making Ferguson tractors at Banner Lane in 1946. Its first post-war design, the Vanguard, arrived in 1948, and the small Eight and Ten followed in 1953 and 1954.
Standard became part of the Standard-Triumph group and was bought by Leyland Motors in 1960, though some sources say 1961. The Standard badge was dropped in Britain in 1963, when the last Standard, an Ensign Deluxe, was built in May. The name lived on in India until 1988.