IT was an engine manufactured in Manchester which went onto power the world.
As recently as 1994, records kept at the L Gardner plant in Patricroft, Eccles, revealed that there were 75,000 vehicles in 58 countries driven by a power unit produced using the engineering skills of a workforce at times approaching up to 3,000 people.
But today, 134 years after Lawrence Gardner first opened for business in Upper Duke Street, Manchester, a name representing Britain's one-time manufacturing dominance of the world is in danger of vanishing forever.
The last remaining diesel engine business bearing the L Gardner badge has been placed into administrative receivership, potentially switching off the ignition for a once great north west industry.
It is a sad time indeed for the thousands who once toiled at L Gardner's sprawling Barton Hall plant, and the numerous other automotive companies which employed thousands in an industry which now employs next to none.
For Paul Gardner, however, great grandson of Lawrence Gardner, and the last Gardner ever to work for the L Gardner company, it is a particularly emotional time.
Saddened
Still in business renovating and servicing the Gardner engines once manufactured by his family's firm, he is saddened that the end might have finally come for Manchester's automotive engineering industry.
"The end of the L Gardner name is a very sad thing for Manchester," says Paul, 64, who left L Gardner in 1986 to establish Paul Gardner Engineering in nearby Monton.
"And as a fourth generation member of the Gardner family it is a very sad thing for me. The L Gardner parts business is the only surviving part of the old company. One only hopes that somebody will buy it and keep it running."
Originally offering services as a general machinist, it wasn't until the mid 1890s that Lawrence Gardner, his six sons and two daughters began supplying engines which they had designed and built.
By 1910, the company occupied eight acres of land in Patricroft, where 1,000 workers were employed.
There were lean times after the first world war but the end of the second world war brought a flurry of orders, including high demand for the first peace time diesel locomotives.
