Together with Arrol-Johnston, Argyll was the most important of the 50-plus Scottish car makers. The first Argyll, a Renault-inspired light car with a 258cc 2.75hp single cylinder MMC-De Dion Bouton engine, and a tubular steel frame, was designed by Alexander Govan (1869-1907) in 1899, a year before the Hozier Engineering Company was formed to make it. This was financed by W.A.Smith of the National Telephone Company. A 5hp MMC engine was used in the 1901 Argyll, which had wheel steering instead of the handlebars, and a new radiator with two horizontal radiators linked by vertical tubes. For 1902, 8hp engines by MMC or Simms were offered, and before that year was out larger car were available, with10hp and 12hp 2 cylinder and 16hp 4 cylinder engines listed. Their chief drawback was a difficult gearbox with a separate lever for reverse; a Govan design, it was notreplaced until 1910. Production rose quickly, with15 cars a week being made in January 1904, and in the second quarter of the year Argyll made 156 cars, which Govan considered a record for the British Motor industry. A variety of engines were used; Argyll's own 12hp 3 cylinder, an 8hp single by De Dion Bouton, and a 10hp twin and 16hp four by Aster. 1905 saw a larger car with a 20/24hp 4 cylinder Argyll built engine of 3684cc. With a longer stroke giving 3825cc, it was made until 1908. Larger still were the 4846cc 26/30hp of 1906-07 and the 6330cc 40hp of 1908-09. These two were the largest Argylls ever made.
The optimism generated by an output of 1200 cars in 1905 led to a classic case of over-expansion. Argyll bought a 25 acre site at Alexandria in the Vale of Leven, where they erected a vast factory with a marble staircase in the main hall leading to the director's offices, Georgian style for the managing director and Elizabethan for the Board of Directors. The southern wing contained a dining hall and a lecture theatre large enough to hold orchestral concerts. The workers washrooms and lavatories were of unheard-of size and quality. "The space devoted to lavatory and cloakroom accomodation for the workpeople occupies as much ground, and must have cost as much money, as many a factory complete" marvelled "The Autocar" at the opening in June 1906. It is debatable if the extravagance of the marble halls, as the Alexandria factory became known, was responsible for Argyll's subsequent problems, but the cost of around £200,000 cannot have helped the balance sheet. By contrast, Napier's new works at Acto cost ony £32,000.
A more immediate blow was Govan's early death in May 1907, which robbed the firm of much of its drive. The extravagance of the marble halls could only have been justified by mass production, and Argyll's were still very much hand built. In August 1908 the company was in liquidation, though the factory remained open and cars continued to be made.
There was a largely new range for 1910, starting with a 10hp monobloc twin, a 12/14hp four which was used as a taxicab, not only in London and other British cities, but in New York, the old 14/16hp four and a new Twenty four and Thirty six made up the range. Productionm rose from 240 cars in 1909 to 452 in 1910, but they were still far short of the heady days of 1905. A new 12hp monobloc four of 1911 had four wheel brakes, the pedals operating on the front wheels and the lever on the rear. The system was designed by the Argyll employee J.M.Rubury, who was later co-designer of the R.L.C. light car. Argyll's next experiment was with sleeve-valves, not Charles Knight's double-sleeve variety, but a single-sleeve design patented by Perter Burt and J.H.K.McCollum. Argyll made two sizes of these sleeve-valve engines, a 2612cc 15/30hp and a 4082cc 25/50hp. These were made up to 1914, together with a single poppet-valve engine, the 1953cc 12/18hp. Argyll hoped to sell licences for their engine to other car makers (rumours spoke of licences in France, Switzerland and Canada), but ony Piccard-Pictet actually made any engines. Although there were considerable differences in design the Knight and Burt-McCollum syatems, Knight sued Argyll for patent infringement. Argyll won the case, but suffered heavy legal expenses. Coupled with the drain on their resources from the Alexandria works, this led to another liqidation, in June 1914, Argyll shares dropped 10 shillings (50p)in February to only 7d (2.8p) in June. The marble halls were sold to the Admiralty, becoming the Royal Naval Torpedo Factory, and continuing as such until they were sold to Plessy Ltd in the 1970's.
This seemed like the end of the road for Argyll, but in November 1915 the former works at Bridgeton were bought by John Brimlow, manager of the rpair works, and after the war he re-started production on a modest scale. The first model was a slightly modified 15/30 with electric starting, but only 11 were made. It was joined in 1922 by the Twelve, a smaller car with a 1495cc sleeve-valve engine made by Greenwood & Batley of Leeds, though some were also supplied by Wallace of Glasgow. A sports model with front-wheel brakes, the 12/40hp, was offered for 1926 and these were standardised on the Argylls shown at the Olympia Motor show in London in 1927. That was their last show appearance, and production probably ended in 1928, though the name was carried on a number of lists up to 1932. Not more than 300 cars were made after the First World War.
