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Origins
Manchester's Crossley Motors built substantial, beautifully engineered cars, and the 20/25 of the immediate pre-war years became the one history remembers: adopted in thousands by the Royal Flying Corps as staff car, tender and ambulance, it carried generals, pilots and stretchers across the Western Front and served as far as Russia. Its reputation for unburstable reliability under abuse made the marque's name — after the Armistice, war-surplus 20/25s motorised half the Empire, and the King toured in Crossleys. The company's civilian twenties cars traded successfully on that glory before losing ground in the thirties to mass producers, after which buses became the Crossley business. The 20/25 remains the emblem: when Britain needed a car that would simply keep going through mud and shellfire, it was this one.
RFC Crossley 20-25 HP ambulance · Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain
