Normand
Garage Ltd is a misleading name for Lyons'
engineering company although one of its
main activities was the servicing of
Lyons' vast transport fleet. During the
early years of its existence Lyons
operated horse-drawn vans to take their
food to their customers. In the early part
of the twentieth century steam became
available and Lyons lost no opportunity in
adopting this new form of transport. Steam
wagons would make frequent trips from
Cadby Hall to Manchester a round trip of
some five days. The growing use of steam
and internal combustion transport required
an organisation to maintain them and so a
workshop was established in 1905. It moved
to the Normand Garage repair shop in
Normand Road, Fulham, London. The
subsidiary later established would take
both these names in their title. In 1925,
after the Greenford tea factory had
opened, the business moved to Park Royal,
west London. The engineering works also
undertook a large amount of work for the
factories designing and building
specialised equipment for the efficient
working of the plant. They built tea
counters for the teashops and ducting for
the cooling systems used on the LEO
computer. The Park Royal facility also
made all the lorry bodies for the Lyons
transport and were so successful at this
that much work was undertaken for other
companies. They built a mobile bank for
the Maharaja of Patiala, in the Punjab
state of India. Built on a chassis of a
Guy Otter and weighing just over 6 tons,
it had bullet-proof windows and was
heavily armour-plated with 7-mm steel
side-panels. Travelling workshops and
10-ton semi-trailer photographic units for
the Royal Air Force were also produced at
the Park Royal workshops. Children's
roundabouts, cinema vans from which Lyons
showed promotional films, three-wheeled
parcel vans and product display vehicles
were all part of Normand's
vehicle-building activities. One of their
most unusual contracts required the
construction of a caravan trailer for
exhibitions. It had been ordered in the
early 1960s by Greville Wynne, the British
businessman, as part of his equipment when
travelling to eastern Europe and it was
designed to conceal a British Leyland
Mini. He was arrested in Hungary in
November 1962, accused of being a spy and
was sentenced to eight years'
imprisonment. In April 1964 he was
exchanged for the spy Gordon Lonsdale but
Colonel Oleg Penkovsky Wynne's go-between
in Russia, was executed. They started to
sell motor cars and had a number of
franchises for Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi,
Citroën and many more car
manufacturers. The operation was sold to a
venture capital backed management buyout
team in 1990.
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©
Peter
Bird 2002
 Normand Staff Xmas Party. Sports Ground Greenford c. 1950s Courtesy Peter Stringer
 Normand Staff Day Trip. c. 1950s Courtesy Peter Stringer
 New Normand Factory/Workshop Under Construction. c. 1980s Courtesy Peter Stringer
 The New Normand Mercedes Workshop Courtesy Peter Stringer

New Normand Mercedes Workshop Nearing Completion. c. 1980s Courtesy Peter Stringer
 New Normand Mercedes Building. c. 1980s Courtesy Peter Stringer
 Normand Staff Fancy Dress Social Evening. c. 1950s Courtesy Peter Stringer
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