Alta's roots trace back to 1929, when Taylor produced his first automobile: a sports car powered by a 1.1-litre engine featuring an aluminium block, wet liners, and shaft-driven twin overhead camshafts of his own design. The car was offered in naturally aspirated or supercharged form producing either 49 or 76 bhp, and was sold in limited numbers to club racers throughout the 1930s. Its keen pricing compared to the more expensive ERA drew many amateur drivers to the marque. By 1934 Taylor had produced the first Alta designed purely for competition — a lightweight offset single-seat voiturette that earned a reputation at hill-climbs, sprints, and time trials, though a lack of reliability prevented it from succeeding in longer Grand Prix events.
As war approached in 1939, Taylor was drafting designs for a straight-8 engine and a third-generation voiturette with fully independent suspension. Production halted when war was declared and Alta's facilities were redirected to the war effort, though Taylor continued developing his ideas throughout the conflict.
The Alta GP car that appeared in 1948 was a development of the pre-war voiturette concept, powered by a supercharged 1.5-litre engine producing approximately 230 bhp. It retained the four-speed pre-selector gearbox of the earlier cars and featured further-developed independent suspension with wishbones and rubber linkage bushings. Three variants were built to order: GP1, GP2, and GP3.
The first car was supplied to privateer driver George Abecassis, who campaigned it through 1948 and into 1949, finishing just once in competitive events. GP2 went to Geoffrey Crossley, who took it to the 1949 Belgian Grand Prix but could manage only seventh place. Joe Kelly received GP3 and concentrated mostly on Irish racing events, achieving a best finish of third in the 1952 Ulster Trophy.
Both Crossley and Kelly brought their cars to the 1950 British Grand Prix, which was also the inaugural FIA Formula One World Championship race. Kelly finished but was unclassified; Crossley retired with a transmission fault. In 1950, Crossley used GP2 to set a number of speed records over 50 miles, 50 kilometres, and 100 kilometres at the Montlhéry circuit in France. GP3 was later extensively rebuilt by Kelly and raced as the Irish Racing Automobiles car in 1952 and 1953, with Kelly eventually replacing the Alta engine with a Bristol unit.
Lacking funding to develop a Formula One successor, Taylor turned to the junior Formula Two category. The new 1,970 cc inline four-cylinder naturally aspirated engine produced around 130 bhp. However, Alta's chassis for the F2 cars followed the preceding GP design too closely, resulting in a car too heavy for its reduced power output. Drivers Tony Gaze and Gordon Watson campaigned the first two F2 chassis across Europe without significant results.
Peter Whitehead — who placed an order for the fifth and final F2 Alta built — drove his car in the 1952 French Grand Prix, and his half-brother Graham Whitehead piloted it at the 1952 British Grand Prix; neither appearance yielded a points finish.
Though the F2 chassis proved uncompetitive, the Alta engine attracted wider attention. Whitehead identified tuning potential in the unit and transplanted it into a Cooper T24 chassis for the 1953 British Grand Prix. HWM had been using Alta engines since 1949, and at Silverstone in 1953 no fewer than four Alta-powered HWM cars competed. The previous year, HWM had delivered Alta's most significant victory when Lance Macklin won the 1952 BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone. Over subsequent seasons, 1.5-litre and 2.5-litre Alta engines found their way into numerous British-built Formula One cars, most successfully in Connaught and Cooper machinery. At peak development the engine was capable of approximately 240 bhp. The Alta name disappeared from Formula One for good when Connaught collapsed in 1959.
In the post-war years Alta also produced aftermarket speed equipment, including a well-regarded overhead valve conversion kit for the early Morris Minor and Morris Eight, which could roughly double the standard 27 bhp output.
Geoffrey Taylor died in 1966 at the age of 63. A 1976 attempt by his son Michael to revive the Alta name with a Formula Ford car came to nothing. A handful of the pre-war sports cars and single-seaters survive in private ownership. GP1, originally owned by Abecassis, was rebuilt as a hill-climb car and remained active in later decades. The fifth F2 car, F2/5, was reunited with its original engine and participated in historic racing events including the 1999 Goodwood Revival.
Alta's contribution to British motor racing extends beyond its modest competition record. By bringing a Grand Prix car to the first-ever Formula One World Championship race and supplying engines to teams including HWM and Connaught, the small Surbiton firm helped lay the foundations of Britain's post-war motorsport industry.
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