Alvis 3 Litre TA 21 to TF 21 (1950 to 1967)

Why people buy one

• Hand-built quality, with Connolly leather, wood trim and a smooth, torquey six-cylinder engine.
• The Graber-styled TD 21, TE 21 and TF 21 are elegant two-door grand tourers, and later cars have four-wheel disc brakes and a ZF five-speed gearbox.
• Survival rates are high (about two thirds of the 1,565 TC 108G to TF 21 cars are known to survive), and most cars are known to the owners' club.
• The Alvis Car Company at Kenilworth (Red Triangle) holds the factory build records, drawings and a very large stock of original and remanufactured parts.
• The Alvis Owner Club, founded in 1951, runs an online car history database and offers practical support.
• Pre-war Alvises such as the 12/50, Speed 20 and Speed 25 are very different vintage cars and are not covered here.

What to weigh up

• Restoring a coachbuilt body is slow and expensive, so body and interior condition matter more than almost anything else.
• The bodies combine steel, aluminium and a wooden frame, and rot in the frame may be hidden under sound-looking panels.
• Early TD 21s used an Austin-Healey four-speed gearbox that is less refined than the later ZF five-speed, which is durable but costly to overhaul.
• ZF power steering (optional from 1964) is expensive to rebuild, and without it the steering is heavy.
• Fuel consumption is high and the brakes on drum-braked early cars are overworked by modern standards.
• Drophead hoods are costly to rebuild correctly, so check the hood, its frame and the car's history.

Where they rust

• Chassis side members and box sections; specialist guides do not single out particular areas, so check the whole chassis.
• The joins between the roof and rear wings on Park Ward-bodied cars.
• Steel door skins on early TD 21s, which also drooped on their hinges; many were later reskinned in aluminium.
• Wooden door pillars and the A and B posts, which caused problems on early TD 21s and can rot on any car.
• The wooden waist rail and rear frame sections on dropheads, where hood leaks soak the timber.
• Sills, wing bottoms and the lower edges of doors.
• Boot floor and spare wheel well.
• Bubbling on the doors of Series II and later cars, which have all-aluminium doors, may point to corrosion where they meet steel fittings, so look closely.
• Floor panels and footwells, especially on dropheads.

Mechanical weak spots

• The six-cylinder engine is robust but can suffer valve seat recession if driven hard for long periods on motorways; earlier engines have a weaker water pump and oil filter.
• The 1959 cylinder head with separate ports is not a straight swap for the earlier head.
• Gearboxes: Alvis four-speed on TA 21 and TC 21, Austin-Healey four-speed on early TD 21, ZF five-speed from October 1962 and Borg-Warner automatics, which are cheaper to rebuild than the ZF.
• Front suspension needs regular greasing; worn bushes cause clonks and vague handling.
• Brakes: drums on early cars, front discs from 1959 and Dunlop discs all round from the April 1962 TD 21 Series II.
• Electrics are dynamo-based, and the ZF power steering pump is driven from the dynamo.

At a Mathewsons viewing

• Check the chassis number and body number against the V5C, and look the car up on the Alvis Owner Club's online car history database before bidding.
• Open each door and lift it at the trailing edge; drop or movement suggests worn hinges or rotten wooden pillars, and doors should shut cleanly with even gaps.
• Lift the carpets and boot mat, and use a torch underneath on the chassis members, sills, floor and spare wheel well for rot, fresh underseal or patching.
• Look closely at the roof to rear wing joins, wing bottoms and door skins for bubbling, and on a drophead raise the hood if allowed and check its lining and frame.
• Look at the condition of the leather, wood veneers and brightwork, which are costly to restore; if staff start the car, listen for top-end noise and watch for smoke and the oil pressure, but do not assume it will be started.

Parts, specialists and clubs

Seen on Bangers & Cash

• Three Alvises (Bangers & Cash series 2, episode 7, First shown March 2020)
• Pre-war Alvis (Bangers & Cash series 6, episode 7, First shown October 2022)
• Alvis Silver Eagle special (Bangers & Cash series 10, episode 9, First shown September 2024)
• 1924 Alvis 12/50 Tourer (Bangers & Cash series 12, episode 7, First shown September 2025)
• Alvis (Bangers & Cash series 13, episode 10, First shown April 2026)
• 1928 Alvis (Bangers & Cash series 13, episode 12, First shown April 2026)

Sources

• Buyer's guide: Alvis TD to TF (Classic & Sports Car), 11 October 2019
• Alvis TE21 and TF21 saloon 1963 to 67 (Classics World), 11 April 2018
• The specialist: Red Triangle (Classic & Sports Car), 19 January 2024
• Why Alvis is happy building two cars a year (PistonHeads), 8 April 2020
• TA21 description (Alvis Owner Club car history), accessed 13 October 2026
• TC21 and Grey Lady (Alvis Owner Club car history), accessed 13 October 2026
• TE21 back on the road (Alvis Owner Club), August 2022
• Alvis TD 21 (Wikipedia), accessed 13 October 2026