Under the conventions of the time, the car would also have been called "Talbot 13CV" reflecting its engine size, but the "13CV" name was not normally applied, possibly because of adverse superstition concerning the number "13".

For traditionally minded customers preferring to select their own car body, the Minor could also be ordered in bare chassis form.

The steering wheel and driving seat were on the right-hand side of the car, following a convention that had been almost universal among European auto-makers twenty years earlier, but which was now seen as rather old fashioned in countries where traffic drove on the right.

Fed via overhead valves by a single Stromberg 22 carburetor, it produced a claimed maximum output of 62 hp (46 kW) at 4,000 rpm.

The Hotchkiss, with its claimed 68 hp (50 kW) of power from an engine of virtually identical dimensions, appears the more aggressively priced, but neither car was small enough to challenge the volume auto-makers in terms of unit sales.