V L Churchill & CoTools

[Oregon rock crusher]

I picked up this British Leyland Sterling tool board yesterday while cruising down the Oregon coast. All the tools are marked Churchill and have the part numbers, most matching whats on the board. Having owned a few MG's and continually tripping over my younger sons XKE project in the shop I decided to drag the board home. The actual Sterling cars were not very successful but some tools may do double duty on other British sports cars. Any other Churchill tool "colectors"? Ed.

 

[Farmer J.]

Nice board, they always look interesting. Could be useful too.
V L Churchill and Co. Ltd. is the full name of the tool maker, just to avoid confusion, as there's other 'Churchill' tool companies.
I have a Churchill hub nut spanner for Land Rover wheel bearings. It's actually out on my bench at the moment as been using it recently, but I'm not going out in the dark cold rain to snap a picture this evening!

Here's the web site of the company, typically English..

About us

VL Churchill & Co Ltd started making tooling for the automotive industry in 1937

vlchurchill.co.uk

 

[Dave455]

The “Sterling” name was used only in North America, for cars that were otherwise sold as Rover’s, and not for very long.

Maybe BMC / British Leyland / Austin Rover (or whatever they were calling themselves that week) knew the car’s weren’t great and didn’t want to tarnish the Rover name. Maybe there were other reasons.

The cars were a mixture of 90’s British and 90’s Japanese. If they’d used British design (and traditional British engineering practice) combined with Japanese reliability and build quality, they’d have had probably the best cars of the era. For some reason though (probably total ignorance) they did it the other way round, and the rest is history.

The Churchill tools (and tool boards) are relatively common in the U.K. The tools are generally up to the job and many specialists have one, or more, on the wall!

I’d probably buy any I saw for reasonable money, provided they were for something useful (Land Rover / Massey Ferguson etc) rather than an Austin Allegro or somesuch…!

 

[four.cycle]

V. L. Churchill and Co - Graces Guide

www.gracesguide.co.uk

 

[Oregon rock crusher]

Thank you Farmer J. for the info on the company name. I changed the thread title to match. Also I was or am a fan of the great British Marques. Shame the Sterling couldn't carry on the tradition. Bad timing didn't help.

Good info Dave445. A perspective I don't often hear. I wondered how familiar these tools would be in England. This was the first British tool board I had noticed over here even though the cars are plentiful.

Thanks for the link four.cycle. I've picked up more info from these responses than from a few hours of google searches.

 

[Farmer J.]

Thank you Farmer J. for the info on the company name.

You're welcome, It;s a pleasure. Not much info about these on the net, I suspect it's one of those English understatement things..! Although as Dave says, these tools on their shadow boards are often to be seen in workshops of franchised dealers they aren't widely available and almost never advertised. I never heard of them being openly sold retail to the public. It seemed to me that the old supply network was almost like a 'closed shop', with tools only supplied to manufacturer approved garages so as to prevent smaller outfits and DIY chaps from getting a share of the work.. and keeping all the profits within the 'old boy's network'!
Maybe I'm cynical, but I had a helluva job to obtain my hub nut spanner, and it was very expensive for what it is. Land Rover provide a torque figure for these nuts, but no way to use a torque wrench on the tool it just has small holes for a 'tommy bar' (I usually use a Steadfast screwdriver in them). Quite a loose fit on the nuts and not adequate to loosen one which has become tight. I had to chisel off a hub nut only last week, front left wheel bearing was getting 'tired' and had turned the inner nut up tight against it's outer locking nut despite the washers.. Here's some pics of the masterpiece of 1980's British engineering.

 

[Oregon rock crusher]

That is a disappointing excuse for a heavy nut spanner Farmer J. Looks like something that belongs in the boot with the emergency roadside kit. Thanks for the additional info.

A bit of a story on the Sterling board....the wife and I often stop by junk/antique shops while out and about and I picked up the tool board at the first stop. By late afternoon space was getting tight in the back of the car when I spotted a fairly rare B&D workmate or rather a "jobmate". A folding work bench whose inventor, Ron Hickman, helped design the Lotus Elan. I had to have it as well but to fit it in I had to unload the toolboard and a few of the loose tools. I had parked very tight to a fence behind the car and it was raining so I hurried to fit it all back in. In my haste some of the loose tools didn't make it back into the boot. I didn't realize my mistake until offloading that night when we got home. Damn.

This particular shop is a 3 hr round trip from my place and they don't open again until tomorrow morning. I'll call down first to see if my tools are still in their lot but not looking forward to the drive even if they are. One more pic of the tools as marked. Some only have the part number but most marked Churchill and a pic of my distraction.

 

[bmwrd0]

I was at a sale in Lake Oswego a couple months ago, and there was a lot of Sterling merch there in the shop office. I wouldn't be surprised if this came out of that sale.

 

[Oregon rock crusher]

Thanks for the intel beemer....That seems likely they would be near the city. In late 70's I used to go up to the BMC dealership in Portland when I needed dealer only parts for MG's. I remember being in awe of the Jags back then. A very nice showroom. This was just an impulse buy because it reminded me of those days and cars.

 

[Oregon rock crusher]

I mounted the Sterling / Churchill tool board in the shop by my sons 70' xke project car. Not a perfect match but at least they likely came ashore through BMC dealerships.