Minimal Motoring E-Book

David Thirlby

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 239

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

From about 1910 to the mid-1920s, the cyclecar was a popular means of transport. Cheap, simply engineered, often crude, it was really just a motorcycle engine with a lightweight chassis and body. It created, however, a new market of people who could afford a motor car; being a car owner was no longer the preserve of the well-to-do. The simplicity of the cars meant that they could easily be built in small quantities, which led to a growth in the number of motor manufacturers. Some of these manufacturers even survive to this day, including probably the most famous British marque – Morgan. Despite the cyclecar being an international phenomenon, with makers in France, the UK, the US and Germany, most had disappeared by the '30s, killed off by the introduction of real cars at low prices. It was France that would keep the cyclecar interest alive over the following decades, producing small cars like the Mochet throughout the Second World War. Minimal Motoring is a selective history of both the cyclecar and microcar, featuring marques such as Reliant, Citroën and even Messerschmitt, all accompanied by period photographs, advertisements and artwork.

Leseprobe

MINIMAL MOTORING

Front cover image: an advertisement from October 1926.

First published 2002

This paperback edition first published 2025

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© David Thirlby, 2002, 2010, 2025

The right of David Thirlby to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 83705 028 4

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1    The Life of the Cyclecar

2    The GN, Racing and the Development of the GN

3    The Morgan

4    The Carden and the AV Monocar

5    The Bédélia and the Cyclecar in France

6    The Spacke and the Cyclecar in America

7    Cars after the Second World War and the Microcar

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to the many people who have helped in the writing of this book. Jacques Potherat was the man who pushed me into starting the research for this book and I, with many others, regret his early and untimely death.

I turned to the Light Car and Edwardian Section of the Vintage Sports-Car Club for advice on what I should include, since I had no desire to research every car, but to highlight the important ones such as the Bédélia, the Morgan and the GN. Bob Jones and Mike Bullett were my first mentors. They advised that it was important to have photographs of some of the oddball devices, even if they were not part of the text.

In Britain I had help from Sandy Skinner, Jon Giles, Kenneth Ball, John Warburton, David Waring, David Ridley, Peter Harper, and specifically Colin Morris and Peter Relph on the British-owned example of a Spacke. Members of the VSCC keen on French cars, such as Keith Bowley and John Blake, were also appealed to for help.

The colour picture of the Scott Sociable comes from the Bradford Industrial Museum. I am grateful to Graham Pilgrim and Gordon Fitzgerald for practically all of the post-war microcar illustrations.

I would like to thank the Veteran Car Club for allowing me to use their magnificent library and to read the American magazine Motor Age. C.F. Caunter wrote in the fifties about cyclecars and I read his writings published by the Science Mueum.

Two weeks in the north-eastern part of the United States of America was spent with Frank Allocca who introduced me to Dr Fred Simeone, who has an excellent collection of motoring literature and who turns out to be a key player in this book, because it was on that visit I found out about the Spacke. Also in the States I gained the co-operation of the Henry Ford Motor Museum and other chums: Tony Carroll, Dave Kimball, Lee Cowie and Doug Webb – all of whom led me down different roads of personally-uncharted cyclecar territory.

The Morgan three-wheeler was the longest lasting cyclecar and the advice, editing and co-operation from Dr Jake Alderson makes me believe that, though there may well be many errors made in this arbitrary selection of cyclecars, that the accurate one reported is the Morgan. Jake introduced Dave Pittuck and Freddie Frot from France to me, who helped on the Darmont-manufactured Morgan.

Illustrations and photographs to illustrate this volume were difficult to find. My long-standing friends John Maitland and Guy Griffiths are the main suppliers. I have been much aided by Peter Harper, who lives close by in Cheshire. Mark Joseland unearthed the photographs taken in the GN works in 1921 and Roger McDonald copied them. Tim Harding was especially helpful in finding illustrations. Those for the post-war microcars came, in the main, from Graham Pilgim and Gordon Fitzgerald.

David Venables and John Warburton have read the story, as has my long-suffering and attractive secretary Paula Wright. The main thing that they had to search for was to try and avoid endless repetition of the same pieces of information and to eliminate non sequiturs. Thank you.

Introduction

The definition of a cyclecar and microcar used in this book is that they are simple road-going cars using, in the main, motorcycle technology. The Bédélia started the craze and the GN and Morgan followed. The Morgan three-wheeler lasted until the mid-1930s, for after that it began to use car components. The cyclecar almost disappeared in the United States of America in four short years. In Europe, the survival period was roughly from 1912 until 1923, with a further life after the end of the Second World War.

In 1909 motoring was not popular or used for business and was only indulged in by a few of two classes – the rich with big cars and the mad motorcyclist. Some cars made history and evolved with it – the prime examples being the Mercedes and the Rolls-Royce. Some made history purely in recognition of their innovation rather than their development, the Ford Model T being the best example. Other cars moulded history so that when their lifespan was over, motoring and the motor car could never be the same again, and in this category there are probably four important makes – Bugatti, Austin, Hispano-Suiza and Vauxhall.

The design of a car in 1909 for the economical niche in the market looked easy to the simple minds of Godfrey and Nash, Morgan, Borbeau (maker of the Bédélia) and a few others. Why not take a fairly powerful twin-cylinder motor-cycle engine, put it in a frame and add wheels to taste.

(Sam Clutton, Motor Sport)

The cyclecar had a short lifespan, but its influence was widespread, it led to cyclecar manufacturers setting out to make a small car with an adequate engine. The principle was that little horse-power was required, for there was very little weight to propel. The idea was taken up by most car-producing countries in the world, and it was developed in different ways according to the temperament of the countries. The cyclecar disappeared in Britain – except for the Morgan, the Raleigh and its successor the Reliant, together with the BSA three-wheelers.

Many small cars have gone well with small engines, but modern mass production and planned obsolescence was not in the minds of the cyclecar manufacturers, before or after the Great War. Nash and Godfrey were engineers, and they were only too happy to take somebody else’s designs and to modify them to suit their own requirements. They were also capable – as all good engineers should be – of considering from first principles the purpose of the parts they were making. Some of their conclusions were the same as those of modern car manufacturers. Moving parts were not designed for an indefinite life; not that they deliberately planned the parts to date quickly. The one thing that separated the GN from all the other cyclecar manufacturers was the continuous product development, not only of chassis but also of engines.

The advent of American mass production methods led to ever lower prices. Morris in Britain dominated the small to middle size of car and the Austin 7 administered the coup de grâce for the cyclecar. The Americans built more cyclecars than any other nation in the 1914-1917 period, but the engines were larger on the whole. It was the continuous success of the Ford Model T and its diminishing price that killed the American cyclecar.

The Morgan three-wheeler design, other than for engine and gearing changes, was the same from the beginning until the end. The GN has more than its fair share of coverage for the simple reason that the company was the wondrous exception that went in for product development – not only of engines but of chassis components as well. Hence the much greater coverage this car has in this book than any other make. The development that both Godfrey and Nash desired of cutting back production and making and selling only a sports model was not to be, but they were able to indulge themselves later – Nash with the Frazer Nash and Godfrey with the HRG.

Out of the cyclecar boom of 1918-1922 came the light French sporting cars such as the Salmson, Amilcar and Sénéchal. The French were the only nation with a logical development from the cyclecar, from the pre-1914 Bédélia and the post-1919 French-built GN, to small sports cars. These cars owed their parentage to the GN.

Monsieur Mauve in his Elfe at the 1920 Gaillon Hill Climb in France. This car is a cyclecar, but it is a racing car and falls outside the remit of this book. Monsieur Mauve only built this one car and modified it into a pillion type passenger two-seater for 1921.

The cartoon which immortalised the Bédélia, from The Cyclecar, December 1912.

Formula Three racing cars of the post-war world, such as the Cooper, could fall into this cyclecar category but are felt to be outside it, as they were not designed for the open road. They are ‘specific racers for a specific class’. Like many things, there are possible exceptions to this rule. Monsieur Mauve, below, in his Elfe with his one and only production model, later fitted with a tandem seat for two up could be the exceptional car but he was never a volume producer. A comparable car was the post-1945 Cooper two-seater sports with a Triumph twin engine, which never got beyond the prototype stage. Any reader of the magazine Iota in April 1948 could have read of the Neve 500, designed by Kenneth Neve with a reinforced ash chassis and a flat twin Douglas 500cc engine, and felt that cyclecars were alive and well; the Neve 500 was competing at the time of the beginning of the Cooper 500 dominance.

The European countries revived their interest and became cyclecar-conscious in the post-war period, though avoiding the term cyclecar. The word ‘microcar’ came into use. This revival was due entirely to the same reasoning as had been the driving force in 1910 and 1919, that of the need for low price and economy in operation.

The three-wheeler was found attractive due to favourable tax regulations. Designers after the Second World War re-examined the possibilities, since there were so many components that could be bought and assembled into a motor car and with minimum development into a sporting car. This had been exactly the drive that set Borbeau, Godfrey and Nash with Morgan on their way.

No attempt has been made to include all cyclecar manufacturers in this slim volume; the aim is primarily to draw a picture of the changing times. Post Second World War there was a resurgence across the world, except for America, in cheap, simple motoring. These vehicles were given the grander name, however, of ‘microcar’.

1

The Life of the Cyclecar

The tricar seemed to be the future for low-powered and economical private transportation at the turn of the century, and for the few years between 1905 and 1909. The motor tricar, a three-wheeled device with the engine and transmission behind the driver and passenger, was an inadequate compromise between the motorcycle and the motor car. At its crudest it was a motorcycle with a two-wheel appendage in front of the main chassis frame and was the basis of innumerable cheaply produced lightweight delivery vans. Two people could sit side by side at the very front between the two wheels with the smelly, noisy engine behind them. In Britain the Riley and AC were the major manufacturers, but there were many others building some cars and hopeful of success.

The voiturette, a scaled-down large car with an engine, radiator and bonnet in front of the driver, was the future. There were also two new and advanced forms of light motor vehicle – the cyclecar and the light car, which were both under development in many countries.

A.C. Arthur Armstrong in his 1946 book Bouverie Street to Bowling Green Lane, the history of the Temple Press publishing house, stated that there were two widely held beliefs of the first decade of the century. Firstly, that the motorcycle was doomed and, secondly, that motorcycle sport did not have a future worthy of consideration.

The Chater Lea Carette of 1907 was a precursor of the cyclecar, fitted with a vee twin Sarolea engine and single belt final drive.

By 1910, motor cars and motorcycles had evolved from their primitive stages of development into vehicles which were close to providing reliable transport. The engines for light cars were simplistic, having been designed and made to the motorcycle standards of the time. Most of the cars or devices offered on sale were built up from proprietary offerings. Ignition systems, if not reliable, were moving towards that state; practical spray carburettors were in production, and gearboxes and clutches were effective. Refinements such as electric lighting, mechanical and electric engine-starting systems and shock absorber devices were still in the future, but becoming available in America.

Many individuals, unknown to each other, and in many countries, were working towards the same end of producing a car using motorcycle and off-the-shelf technology, with no particular plans for going into the business of manufacture. These were do-it-yourself backyard enterprises for the personal amusement of the constructors. It was only after the passage of two or three years that these pioneers realised that they had created an entirely new movement within the growing motor industry and drew together to follow the common path. In 1909 the two favoured names for these lightweight cars were ‘monocar’ and ‘duocar’.

In France there were two active enthusiasts, L.F. de Peyrecave and Robert Bourbeau, and it was the latter with his friend, Henri Devaux, who triggered off the cyclecar vogue. ‘One-off job designs’ were appearing on the roads in Britain, and the Temple Press journal Motor Cycling became interested in what appeared to be a development in their sphere, but whether it was really a new kind of motorcycle with four wheels or a light car with a motorcycle engine was something that caused the Editor, W.G. McMinnies, to think about the future.

It was said at the time that if there were two Germans marooned on an island, within a week they would have produced a new philosophy, two Frenchmen a duel and two Englishmen a club. Indeed, the untranslatable word ‘club’ has been given by the British to the world, like the French terms chassis and chauffeur. The rest of Europe and the world absorbed the word ‘club’ from the very beginnings of motoring. The first motor club of all was formed out of enthusiasm for the new sport of motor racing. In 1894 the historic first motor run took place from Paris to Rouen, and the following year the Automobile Club de France was founded. Two years later Britain hailed the birth of the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland, which became the Royal Automobile Club in 1907. Regional motor clubs followed quickly. The Midland Automobile Club ran its first hill-climb in 1901 and at Shelsley Walsh in 1905. A joint Committee of the Royal Automobile Club and the Auto-Cycle Union, which was convened in the spring of 1912, considered the new form of light motor car. It was decided that the generic name should be a ‘cyclecar’. That same year, motoring had its first club dedicated to the development and enjoyment of a new kind of motor car with the foundation of the Cyclecar Club.

In 1902 one of the founders of the Motor Cycling Club, the largest and most active club in the country, was Ernest Penman, once a racing cyclist who had joined Temple Press to launch Cycling and became general manager. Waylaying a harassed Armstrong, he put the suggestion to him of a cyclecar magazine, and found it instantly snapped up. The Cyclecar staff operated in an office in the Temple Press Rosebery Avenue premises, where they worked to prepare the first issue of the journal. By 1912 the cyclecar movement was booming. Companies were being formed all over the country and there was furious hammering and welding to prepare models for the forthcoming October Motor Cycle Show. A meeting was assembled for a round table exploratory discussion where, among others, were Frank ‘Hippopo’ Thomas, Osmond Hill, H.R. Godfrey, Glynn Rowden, W.G. McMinnies and Armstrong in the chair. The upshot was the decision to call an open meeting in London, at the Holborn Restaurant, on 30 October.

There were about sixty present that Wednesday evening in the Edwardian glories of the famous old restaurant which stood at the corner of Kingsway and Holborn. Into the chair they voted Revd E.P. Greenhill, who was chairman of the Competitions Committee of the ACU. At this stage in the development of motoring the motorcycling people regarded cyclecarism as a branch of their own activities. The RAC, on the other hand, was dubious about admitting the new machines to the dignified car world. When everybody had settled down, C.S. Burney (of Burney & Blackburne, makers of motorcycle engines with the outside flywheel) proposed that a club be formed, seconded by F.A. McNab. The proposal was accepted and officers had been appointed at the Motor Cycle Show at Olympia, on 29 November: W.G. McMinnies was proposed as the Club Captain; Frank ‘Hippopo’ Thomas as Hon. Secretary; A.C. Armstrong agreed to become the Treasurer; and Glynn Rowden was nominated as Club Chairman. A Rules Committee was appointed: H.P. White; W. Cooper; F.A. McNab; E. Hapgood; D. Kapadia; Revd E.P. Greenhill; Dr A.M. Low, a scientist whose enthusiasm for anything new and progressive knew no bounds; E.M.P. Boileau; E.H. Taylor; R.M. Stallbrass; A.E.Parnacott; A.W. Ayden; R.W. George; R. Cleave; Glynn Rowden; A.C. Armstrong; F.S. Whitworth; Percy Bradley; G.N. Higgs; F.C. Whitworth; E.C. Paskell; R. Surridge; R.F. Messervy; A. Selwyn; Osmond Hill; Archie Nash; W.G. McMinnies; Maj. Lindsay Lloyd; Laurie Cade, the Fleet Street journalist; Gambier Weeks; J.N. Barrett, C.S. Burney and F.L. Goodacre – a number of leading cyclecarists who managed to produce a set of rules within a month.

The inaugural meeting duly took place at Olympia with Glynn Rowden in the chair. Business was brisk. The subscription was fixed at one guinea with half a guinea for country members and for ladies. The proposed officers were elected en bloc and Osmond Hill agreed to help Thomas as the Assistant Hon. Secretary. Between fifty and sixty people joined there and then.

The Wall Tri-car, made in Birmingham 1911, had a single or twin-cylinder engine and the transmission was by a Roc clutch and two-speed epicyclic gearbox.

The GN Quad of 1912, standing for quadricar, before the term cyclecar came into use.

All was not sweetness and light, however, for there was one man who challenged every rule as it was proposed, criticised everything, further he demanded that no one in the trade should be admitted to membership and, having departed that night, was never heard of again.

The first outing was reported:

A motor-bus turned round to look at us. Taxicabs thought they should give way, sidling down to the kerb in their best Saturday morning style. A pair of equine thoroughbreds stood upon their hind legs and pawed the air with delight. A tram driver pulled up his house-on-wheels with such a jerk that the passengers were shot on the floor. A portly pedestrian, making his fourth attempt to cross Piccadilly Circus, bathed in the mud instead. Even the man on point duty put an electric-light standard between himself and the peril of the streets. And then we passed.

The roar of the 8hp JAP swept up the torrent of abuse that marked our passage as we churned through a sea of slimy, yellow mud that made the heart of the stoutest taxicab driver turn faint. Not so the heart of our Duocar as we rocketed over the greasiest streets of south-east London. Beyond Putney we picked up a GN and, as one cyclecarist to another, hooted merrily, trod on the accelerator pedal and gave the glad-eye for a speed exhibition up Putney Hill. The GN, being in the hands of some reckless young fellow, won easily, and we considered, as we picked up various cars one by one, that their drivers were not looking too pleased about it. Later on, the GN enthusiasts were discovered warming their hands by the roadside. So, hastily referring them to The Cyclecar Manual and giving a nod to three gloomy-looking gentlemen in charge of a ‘measured furlong’, we made Kingston, Ditton and Esher without incident.

At Esher, the GN came roaring by triumphantly. At ‘The Bear’, a Duo-ist was observed taking in ‘home fuel’. Presently, he too came to the front to give us an exhibition of skilful driving, which we took to be a display of figure skating.

At Wisley Hut there were already half a dozen arrivals, besides an equal number of motorcarists, who gathered round to gaze, awe-struck, at slackened belts resting in the mud.

‘Aren’t they awful?’ said one. ‘How they drive with belts hitting the ground beats me.’ We informed him that we’d had the wind behind. Every few minutes another arrival would perform the customary finishing sprint and brake test, until there were nearly two dozen machines lined up at the roadside. These included five Duos, three GNs, three Humberettes, two GWKs, Parnacott’s quaint looking iron-clad, an AC Sociable, an Autotrix, an Averies, a Sherwin, and a Bédélia, besides several of the homemade variety.

Had there been an ‘appearance prize’, it would have been divided between Higgs (whose beautiful lilac-hued GN was almost spotless, thanks to a neat arrangement of auxiliary wings) and the passenger who had been used as a mud shield on an experimental Duo, the front or the back of whose head could only be made out by his overcoat buttons.

Some thirty members and friends sat down to lunch in an apparently very subdued frame of mind, for was this not a very sedate and historic occasion? Only one lady member (there are two altogether) was present. Having been disappointed in the delivery of a new cyclecar, she had cycled down to the run.

After lunch, half the party followed the Revd E.P. Greenhill’s GWK over the Surrey hills, in response to his invitation to take tea with him at Walton-on-the-Hill. Up, up, through winding lanes we sped, Thomas’s big GN ‘Hippopo-Thomas’, scattering mud forty feet behind it, and drowning all remonstrance with a bark that could be heard for ten miles. Keeping discreetly out of range, we had a wonderful vista of a long procession of the low-built, rakish-looking cars winding over the hills. Every now and then a dip in the road would shut out a view of the procession and then, far off, we would espy it once more, speeding swiftly up the opposite slope.

A driving mist of rain swept across the country, but what cared we as we tore over squelching roads with the crackle of a score of exhausts in front to guide our way and promise company at the journey’s end? The spiritual joy of the new motoring makes light of fleshly ills. It was dusk when we pulled up and joined the thronged tea tables.

Our last glimpse of the first run of the Cyclecar Club was of ‘Hippopo-Thomas’ roaring through the night, silhouetted against the wide arc of its searchlight. Suddenly, ‘Hippopo-Thomas’ threw up its back wheels and disappeared from view! It had shot clean across the main road and into the ditch on the far side! Fortunately, it does not require a crane to haul a cyclecar out of difficulties, and two lusty cyclecarists made light work of pushing ‘Hippopo-Thomas’ back on to the road again. We let the big GN light the way, keeping to the sodden road with difficulty, speeding north and homewards through streaming rain, damp, happy, and thrilled with the joy of a wild, cross-country drive.

The first all-cyclecar trial was held that same month, by the Sutton Coldfield Automobile Club on a 100-mile circuit out to Stratford-on-Avon and Buckinghamshire, at the conclusion of which eight gold medals were awarded to: Rex Mundy, GWK, he was later competitions manager to the KLG company;

G. Bryant, Motorette three-wheeler; P.J. Evans, Humberette; E.R. Wintle, Rollo tandem; A.G. Eames, A.C. Sociable;

H.F. S. Morgan, Morgan; B.W. Bailey, Crescent; and F.H. Stevenson, Morgan. L.F. de Peyrecave had exchanged his first love of a Bédélia for the English Duo.

Archie Nash, with Ron Godfrey beside him, leads an AC with J. Mundy in a 1912 Brooklands race.

Archie Nash at the wheel with Ron Godfrey and the interim GN engine design of a JAP with Peugeot barrels, the crankcase was soon replaced with the GN ninety-degree bottom end.

A GWK of 1912 period ready for the war.

As soon as it became known that the new journal was in preparation and as more and more vehicles were coming onto the roads, the Auto-Cycle Union decided to adopt the new machines under its wing, rather than allow the RAC to gain control and have the membership fees. A conclave was therefore duly assembled at the RAC premises, under the chairmanship of Col. H.C. L. Holden, who had supervised the plans for the building of Brooklands a few years earlier. Col. Lindsay Lloyd, Clerk of the Course at Brooklands and an ACU committee member, came up with the suggestion for the new cars of ‘cyclecar’, which was immediately adopted. McMinnies was to be the first editor. On 27 November 1912, The Cyclecar was on sale for a penny – it had sixty-four pages plus a further eighty-four pages of advertisements, and measured 11in by 8in. Over 100,000 copies were sold to the amazement of the trade and the satisfaction of the sponsors.

Edward Dangerfield, the managing director of Temple Press, had inserted an opinion in the first issue of Cyclecar that ‘despite a contrary opinion very generally expressed by motor manufacturers and others, we predict that, in the not very distant future, there will be an intense demand for the four wheeled single seater.’ As Arthur Armstrong recorded in 1946 – ‘the prediction has yet to be fulfilled.’

On 14 December 1912 at a meeting of the Fédération Internationale des Clubs Moto Cycliste, it was formally decided that there should be an international classification of cyclecars to be accepted by England, Canada, the United States, France, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Austria and Germany.

It was decided to establish two classes of cyclecars, as follows:

(i) Large class

Maximum weight

772lb

Maximum engine capacity

1,100cc

Minimum tyre section

60mm

(ii) Small class

Minimum weight

330lb

Maximum weight

660lb

Maximum engine capacity

750cc

Minimum tyre section

55mm

The cyclecar, with economy as its chief feature, was optimistically hailed as ‘the new motoring’. A cyclecar was described at the time as a combination of the worst characteristics of a motorcycle and the more depressing features of a motor car. All cyclecars had to have clutches and change-speed gears. Simply and with very little cost, this could be managed by slipping the belt on the pulley and then varying the pulley diameter to change the gear ratio.

Harold E. Dew, a founder club member of the Cyclecar Club, was at the Holborn Restaurant meeting. He was but one of many who came into the movement by building his own machine in 1910, with the idea of constructing a vehicle to cost about £35. Unfortunately, he must have miscalculated something because he had spent £100 before he started putting the parts together. He ended up with a central box-type chassis, which he straddled like a motor-cycle, but, though it had no bodywork of any description, it had an engine and four wheels. In his enthusiasm he let it be known that he was prepared to help others with design and fabrication. In eight weeks he had over 300 replies – one asking how much he would charge for a batch of a dozen.

A Harrods of Knightsbridge advertisement of November 1912. Harrods could never be thought of as a motor trading emporium. But for a brief period they, as so many people, thought that the cyclecar was the new motoring and here to stay.