Alvis Speed 25

Information

Alvis Speed 25 SB Drophead Coupé
Coachwork by Offord & Sons
Car no18452, Body no2557

This car was owned by Captain Robert Sandeman, an accomplished aviator from the Sandeman family, who in 1939, used the car for his honeymoon in the south of France. During the trip his new wife, Angie, crashed the Alvis near Le Luc-en-Provence, leaving it undriveable. The car was transported by rail to Marseille, where it remained as Europe descended into war. Robert and his wife managed to return to Britain via the last available route, from Le Havre to Southampton.
After the outbreak of WWII, Sandeman made enquiries through the RAC about recovering the Alvis. The reply warned that German-controlled France was enforcing all outstanding customs charges harshly, and that unpaid duties or storage fees could be substantial. After Sandeman’s death in 1942, his family continued the search. By 1945, the RAC confirmed the car was still in the Marseille garage where it had been left. The garage had been requisitioned during the German occupation: the tyres had been removed, and the Alvis had been left outside before eventually being covered with a sheet. A year later, the family received a demand for extremely high storage charges, which they refused to pay. This was the last documented sighting of the car in France.
Decades later, in the mid-1990s, renewed research uncovered a claim that the Alvis had been purchased by a USAF Captain Dewar and shipped to Boston in 1947. Another unverified report suggested it was seen in a warehouse in Rochester, New Jersey in 1977, painted white—though no such town exists, casting doubt on the account.

With no confirmed trace after the mid-1940s, three possibilities remain:
- the car stayed hidden or abandoned somewhere in France
- it was exported to the United States and survives in secretive ownership
- it was dismantled or lost without record