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The first unit to be created was the A-type overdrive, which was fitted to many sports cars during the 1950s, and into the late 1960s. The first production vehicle to feature the Laycock system was the 1948 Standard Vanguard Saloon. Another British company, the former aircraft builder Fairey, built a successful all-mechanical unit for the Land Rover, which is still in production in America today. De Normanville overdrives were found in vehicles manufactured by Standard-Triumph, who were first, followed by Ford, BMC and British Leyland, Jaguar, Rootes Group and Volvo to name only a few. The system was devised by Captain Edgar J de Normanville (1882–1968), and made by Laycock through a chance meeting with a Laycock Products Engineer. The vast majority of overdrives in European cars were invented and developed by a man called de Normanville and manufactured by an English company called Laycock Engineering (later GKN Laycock), at its Little London Road site in Sheffield.