Paramount Cars

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Paramount Cars was a British car initially manufactured in Swadlincote, Derbyshire between 1950 and 1956.

Founded by WA Hudson and S Underwood from Derbyshire, the Paramount had an aluminium over wood frame body with BMW like grille and was mounted on a separate tubular steel chassis with front transverse and rear semi elliptical leaf springs. It was originally intended to have Alvis engine and suspension but to reduce cost the production versions used Ford 10 components including the 1172 cc side valve engines, but fitted with twin SU carburettors, which resulted in poor performance. The car was however well built and equipped and was listed in both 2 and 4 seat versions.

In 1953 production moved to Leighton Buzzard and the Ford Consul 1500 cc engine was an option in a longer chassis as also was a Wade or Shorrocks supercharger. The price was now an uncompetitive £1009 and production ceased in 1956 after about 70 cars had been made.

The car had a wheelbase of 96 inches (later 102 inches), overall length of 166 inches (168 inches), overall width of 66 inches and weighed between 2040 and 2350 pounds.

After the end of car production the remaining chassis were sold off and several were fitted with Rochdale glass fibre bodies.

There was no connection with the two separate American Paramount Car companies of Azusa, California (1923-1924) and New York (1927-1931).