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Standard Motor Company

British motor vehicle manufacturer

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ1522049
Source-derived summary

The Standard Motor Company Limited was a motor vehicle manufacturer, founded in Coventry, England, in 1903 by Reginald Walter Maudslay. For many years, it manufactured Ferguson TE20 tractors powered by its Vanguard engine. All Standard's tractor assets were sold to Massey Ferguson in 1959. Standard purchased Triumph in 1945 and, in 1959, officially changed its name to Standard-Triumph International and began to put the Triumph brand name on all its products. A new subsidiary, The Standard Motor Company Limited, was established and took over the manufacture of the group's products.

The Standard name was last used in Britain in 1963, and in India in 1988.

History

1903–1914

Maudslay, great-grandson of the eminent engineer Henry Maudslay, had trained under Sir John Wolfe-Barry as a civil engineer. In 1902 he joined his cousin Cyril Charles Maudslay at his Maudslay Motor Company to make marine internal combustion engines. The marine engines did not sell very well, and still in 1902 they made their first engine intended for a car. It was fitted to a chain-drive chassis.

Editorial summary

“Standard Motor Company” enters the record as british motor vehicle manufacturer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Standard, Motor and Company can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1903, 1959, 1945, 1963—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1903. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Standard, Motor and Company.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Standard Motor Company” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Standard, Motor and Company provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1522049. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1903, 1959, 1945 and 1963.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Standard Motor Company”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Standard Motor Company primary sources, Standard Motor Company archive and Standard research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Standard Motor Company”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Standard Motor Company” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.