Abbott

E.D. Abbott Ltd. was a British coachbuilding company based in Farnham, Surrey. Edward Dixon Abbott had been employed in the design department of the Wolseley car company and later he joined the coachbuilding company Page & Hunt, which had started operations in 1920. Abbott became their London Sales Manager and when Page & Hunt failed in 1929 he took over their Farnham works and formed a new company using his own name.

Many of the early orders were for commercial vehicles keeping the new company afloat during the worst of the depression but some car body making continued. From 1931 Abbott took a stand each year at the London Motor Show. In 1934 Abbott got a major contract from Lagonda to provide all the bodies for the new small Rapier and work from Frazer-Nash for coachwork on imported BMW chassis.

After World War 2 the company restarted its coachbuilding activities building production runs of coupes for Sunbeam-Talbot and Healey, as well as some special bodies for Jowett, Bentley, Jaguar and Lanchester. Large orders came from Ford for estate car versions of their Consul and Zephyr models which kept the firm in business during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The days of the special coachbuilder were numbered and orders declined through the 1960s and Abbott finally closed its doors in 1972.