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......Normand...Garage...Ltd........

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.

 

© 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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