The directors of the company were Lord Nuffield as chairman, Oliver Boden, Herbert Clark, Andrew Walsh, and Wilfred Hobbs [2] In 1935 at the personal request of the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, Lord Nuffield took on the job of bringing up-to-date the mechanization of the Army and the ground section of the Air Force.

[3][page needed] Nuffield found it difficult to get government interest in him building aero-engines - the ministry saying they did not have enough work to keep the companies they were already using sufficiently busy and could not offer him a contract.

[6][page needed] They were developing an advanced Wolseley radial aero engine of about 250 horsepower but the project was abandoned when Lord Nuffield got from the Air Ministry the fixed price Intention to Proceed (ITP) contract papers which he believed would have required "an army of chartered accountants".

Lord Nuffield decided he would deal only with the War Office and Admiralty and not the Air Ministry[citation needed] (see Airspeed).

To meet a requirement in 1937 for a "heavy", ie better protected, cruiser tank, Nuffield came up with a design based on the Christie suspension and Liberty engine under the General Staff specification "A16".

During World War II the Gosford Street, Coventry, plant was to provide over half the UK output of Bofors anti-aircraft guns.