B.S.A.

GB, 1907 – 1926, 1933 – 1936

Birmingham Small Arms Co Ltd, Sparkbrook, Birmingham, Coventry

In 1907 the famous Midlands arms manufacturers began to make cars as a sideline. They were not entirely new to the field, having made parts for the Roots in 1897. Neither then nor later did they show much originality in their BSA cars. E.E. Baguley, formerly of Ryknield, was in charge, and later produced in 1908, a copy of the successful 40hp Itala from Italy. Other conventional, medium-sized BSA fours followed in small quantities. The major change that followed in 1911, after the company’s takeover of Daimler, was the adoption of Knight double sleeve-valve engines, as used by the latter concern, in BSA cars. These differed from Daimlers in being generally smaller and lighter. The first, the BSA Twelve of about two litres, weighed only 1.232lb in chassis form. Open bodies were of pressed steel from 1912: a single, important innovation that went largely unregarded. BSA also made the Stoneleigh, which was a BSA except for name and radiator, from then until 1914. It should nog be confused with the better-known Stoneleigh light car of the 1920s.
The first post-war BSA was a light car – an attempt to cash in on the boom in popular motoring, but superior to a great many. The BSA Ten of 1921 was powered by an air-cooled V-twin engine of modern design, with overhead valves, coil ignition, aluminium crankcase, and aluminium pistons in iron liners. This BSA developed 18bhp from a cubic capacity of 1080cc, and was made by Hotchkiss of Coventry. This power unit was smooth and though, like all of its kind, it was noisy, it was eventually made quieter by improvements. The rear axle of the BSA Ten with its underslung worm drive on Lanchester patents, was always silent. This uncharacteristic quality helped to sell the BSA Ten well until it was dropped in 1924. The next BSA’s were in fact small Daimlers, with 6-cylinder Knight double-sleeve-valve engines of under two litres. They were discontinued in 1926. From 1933 to 1936, this policy was resumed. In 1931, BSA had taken over Lanchester and introduced a line of completely new Lanchesters as cheap Daimlers. In turn, a still cheaper range christened BSA’s followed from 1933, consisting of a machine basically similar to the Lanchester: a BSA Ten but with a side-valve engine, and a BSA Light Six identical to its Lanchester opposite number. These BSA cars were made in the Daimler factory at Coventry. After 1936, no more cars came from the motor car division of BSA.

GB, 1929 – 1940

B.S.A. Cycles Ltd, Small Heath, Birmingham

In 1924 Hotchkiss, makers of proprietary engines for other car firms, were taken over by their main customer, William Morris. They had also made an excellent 1100cc, V-twin, air-cooled engine with overhead valves for the Birmingham Small Arms Company, for use in that company’s BSA light car (this engine also powered the short-lived Hotchkiss light car itself). BSA Cycles Ltd (the motor cycle division of BSA) acquired manufacturing rights in the engine to drive, in 1-litre form, the front wheels of a 3-wheeler of very modern conception with independent front suspension. This, the famous BSA Beeza, first appeared in 1929, ready for the 1930 season. In 1933 flexibility was added to the BSA’s virtues when a water-cooled 1100cc 4-cylinder sv engine became available. In the previous year, the BSA manufacturers had already tried to attract a wider market by adding a solid axle and another wheel at the rear. This became the BSA Nine in 1933. The front wheel drive BSA 4-wheeler was dropped for a season, but reappeared as the 9hp BSA Scout in 1935. From 1936 to 1940 the Scout in 1200cc BSA Ten form was the only BSA sold, the 2- and 4-cylinder 3-wheelers having been dropped in the former year. There was talk in the early 1950s of resuming production of a small BSA car with a 2-cylinder air-cooled engine, but it came to nothing.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; TRN
The information is written with the greatest of care. However, if you have any suggested amendments please contact us at office@prewarcar.com

Daimler

D, 1886 – 1902

(1) Gottlieb Daimler, Bad Cannstatt, 1886 – 1890

(2) Daimler Motoren-Gesellschaft, Bad Cannstatt, 1890 – 1902

Gottlieb Daimler was employed until 1882 as technical director at the Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz, where he worked on internal combustion engines. Wilhelm Maybach was also engaged by Daimler at the Deutz works. Daimler held shares in the Deutz company and the income form these gave Daimler some financial support when Daimler left Deutz. He moved to Bad Cannstatt near Stuttgart, where Daimler started a small workshop for research and experimentation and brought in Maybach to work for him. Daimler’s plans were to develop a high-speed internal combustion engine which could be fitted into road and rail vehicles as well as into boats. In 1883 a high-speed Daimler prototype petrol engines with hot-tube ignition were built. This was the first time that petrol was used for an internal combustion engine. The next step for Daimler was the construction in 1885 of the world’s first Daimler motor cycle, which was also the last one ever built by Daimler or later companies bearing the Daimler name. Next, trials were made with a motorized boat and sleigh before Daimler and Maybach fitted an engine to an ordinary horse-drawn carriage, modified for the purpose . The Daimler car was ready in 1886 and made its first trial runs around Cannstatt. The engine was an air-cooled vertical single-cylinder or 1.5hp with tube ignition. Further trials with Daimler engines in boats, trams and fire-engines followed.

For some time Maybach had tried to convince Daimler that they should build a vehicle designed from the start as a motor car. Daimler opposed the idea for a long time but he at last agreed to build a Daimler prototype. It was a two-seater 4-wheeled vehicle with a rear-mounted V-twin engine. The chassis was a tubular steel frame and the steel wire wheels gave the cars its name of ‘Stahlradwagen’. The Daimler car was sent to the Paris World Fair of 1889. Panhard-Levassor and Peugeot took a great interest in this car, and both firms started car production with Daimler engines and laid the foundation of the French motor car industry.

In 1890 the Daimler Motoren-Gesellschaft was founded by soon differences arose between Daimler and his new partners. This led to Daimler’s separation from the company in 1893. He and Maybach started an experimental workshop in the Hotel Hermann; this can be regarded as an independent Daimler enterprise which also built cars. Daimler successfully continued his efforts to develop a high-speed engine for motor cars. The very important invention of the atomizing carburetor by Daimler was also made in the Hotel Hermann. In 1895 an agreement was reached and Daimler and Maybach returned to the Daimler company. The Daimler cars produced were the belt-driven 2-cylinder type, the first Daimler car manufactured in any numbers. It was succeeded in 1897 by the Daimler Phönix, the first type with front engine. 1899 saw the first 4-cylinder engines. A car with a 28hp engine was entered by its owner, Emile Jellinek for the Nice Week, 1899; this Daimler car was called the Mercedes after his eldest daughter.

Jellinek was a successful business man and Consul-General of the Austro-Hungarian empire in Nice, taking a great interest in motoring and especially Daimler cars. He acted as an unofficial agent selling Daimler cars to his wealthy friends. But he was not satisfied with their performance and suggested that the Daimler company should build a high-performance car of an entirely new conception. The result was the 35hp 4-cylinder Daimler model which became known as the first Mercedes car. It was designed by Maybach, incorporating some of the principles of the P.D. Car designed by Paul Daimler, a son of Gottlieb Daimler. It made a very successful debut at the Nice Week, 1901. Jellinek had a seat on the Daimler car company’s board of directors since 1900. He now obtained the sole agency for Daimler in France, Belgium, Austro-Hungary and the United States of America. He sold the cars under the name of Mercedes – which formerly had been only his pseudonym – to counter possible legal proceedings by Panhard-Levassor, who owned licences for Daimler cars under an earlier agreement with Gottlieb Daimler himself. As a result of the great successes of Mercedes cars Daimler decided in 1902 to accept this as a new brand name for all subsequent private Daimler cars. Commercial vehicles continued to be marketed under the name Daimler, and this name was also applied to the cars built in 1901 by the breakaway M.M.B. company in Berlin.

GB, 1896 to date

(1) Daimler Motor Syndicate Ltd, Coventry, Warwickshire, 1896 – 1904

(2) Daimler Motor Co (1904) Ltd, Coventry, Warwickshire, 1904 – 1910

(3) Daimler Co Ltd, Coventry, Warwickshire, 1910 to date

The Daimler Motor Syndicate was formed in England in 1893 by F.R. Simms to exploit Gottlieb Daimler motor patents, but it was not until 1896 that the Coventry factory became active as part of H.J. Lawson’s empire. Though Daimler himself was a director until 1898, the English and German Daimler concerns pursued their separate ways. In the first two years cars were mostly imported, and early English Daimlers were 2-cylinder machines, largely on Panhard lines, with automatic inlet valves, tiller steering, tube ignition, 4-speed and reverse gearboxes, chain drive and solid tyres. Prices ranged from £368 for a pheaeton up to £418 for a ‘Daimler private omnibus’. 1899 saw the first 4-cylinder car, a 3-litre machine rated at 12hp; this Daimler had wheel steering, and the Hon. John Scott-Montagu became the first British driver to compete in a continental race on a vehicle of British construction when he drove one Daimler in the Paris-Ostend that year. King Edward VII, while still Prince of Wales, took delivery of his first Daimler in 1900, thus forging a connection between the Daimler company and the reigning house which lasted until the 1950s. Design policy was very uncertain for the next few seasons, but in 1902 there was a chain-driven 1.8-litre twin Daimler, as well as fours of 2.4 and 4½-litres’ capacity with tubular, Panhard-like radiators. These Daimler cars retained stand-by tube ignition. The fluted radiator and 3-piece bonnet, both to become Daimler hallmarks, were introduced in 1904, the year in which the Daimler company went over to large and powerful chain-driven fours with mechanically-operated side valves and coil ignition, which ran in such events as the herkomer Trophy Trials. The 9¼ litre ‘Daimler 35’ was typical, but there were even bigger versions of over 10½-litres, and Daimler advertising made much of sprint wins on the Continent and in the USA as well as at home. Some of these Daimler cars were made under licence in Italy as the De Luca.

1909 saw a complete volte face with the adoption of Charles Yale Knight’s double-sleeve valve engine and underslung worm drive, and the Daimler cars of the next 23 years were smooth, and silent, but not capable of high performance. They also changed little in appearance, since Daimler, unlike most luxury-car makers, built their own bodywork. Poppet valves were dropped altogether after 1909. By 1914 the Daimler company’s range extended from a 4-cylinder 3.3-litre ‘Daimler 20’ with rear-axle gearbox at £430 for a chassis up to a very large 7.4-litre 6-cylinder ‘Daimler 45’. Electric lighting and starting were standard on the bigger cars. The purchase of Daimler by BSA in 1910 made no difference to the cars, though the BSA itself became merely a cheap Daimler.

After World war 1, 4-cylinder cars were dropped (apart from a short-lived ‘Daimler 20’ in 1922) and the same solid conservative machines were offered in a range of fearsome complexity. There was a 1½-litre six in 1923 and front wheel brakes arrived with the 35hp model in 1924, becoming universal late in 1925, when light steel sleeves were adopted and outputs went up. The immense and stately 12-cylinder 7.1-litre Daimler Double Six was introduced in 1927; 12-cylinder Daimler cars were used by the Royal Family and persisted in a variety of capacities from 3.7 litres until 1938, the last ones using poppet valves. In 1927 the company offered 23 separate Daimler car models (exclusive of body styles), using five engines from 1.9-litres to 7.1-litres, and twelve wheelbase lengths from the 9ft 9in of the owner-driver ’Daimler 16-55’ up to the 13ft 7in of the Royal model of the Double-Six, which cost £1950 for a chassis alone. In 1930 Daimler pioneered the fluid-flywheel transmission with column selector which was used on all Daimler models from 1932 to 1956. The Lanchester company was acquired in 1931 and the make downgraded into another species of inexpensive Daimler cars for sale. In 1933 the influence of Launce Pomeroy Sr was reflected in a 1.8-litre 6-cylinder ‘Daimler 15’ with overhead valves for the owner-driver at £450, and this was followed by a series of ohv sixes and straight-8s, some of them with fixed cylinder heads. Independent front suspension appeared on 1938 versions of the ‘Daimler 15’. In 1939 there were three sixes and two eights, the top of the range being the 4½-litre 32hp limousine.

After World War 2 the 2½-litre Daimler DB.18 (descended from the ‘15’) was revived and there were two limousine models with hypoid final drive, a 4-litre six and a 5½-litre eight. A certain lack of direction punctuated the early 1950s, which saw the short-stroke 2½-litre ‘Daimler Conquest’ saloon and its 100mph variant, the ‘Daimler Conquest Century’, and also a sports two-seater. The company was reorganized in 1956, in which year automatic transmission was available as an alternative to the fluid-flywheel gearbox. The 3.8-litre 6-cylinder ‘Daimler Majestic’ of 1958 had automatic transmission and disc brakes as standard equipment and a year later came the Turner-designed V8 2½-litre Daimler SP250 sports car, a 120mph machine which broke away form traditional Daimler appearance and sold for £1.395. A synchromesh gearbox was standard. A pair of 4.6-litre V8s with traditional bodywork joined it in 1960, in which year the company was bought by Jaguar. A 2½-litre saloon using the small V8 Daimler engine in a Mk II jaguar body was introduced for 1963, and gradually Jaguar influences took over. The 8-cylinder Majestic Major saloon was replaced in 1967 by the Daimler Sovereign, a Jaguar 420 down to its dohc 6-cylinder engine, and a year later there was a new Jaguar-based limousine using the 4235cc power unit and a Vanden Plas body. The last V8 Daimlers were made in 1996, and inevitably the 1973 season brought a Daimler version of the 5.3-litre V12 XJ6 Jaguar, designated the Double Six; a long-chassis version had trim by Vanden Plas.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; HON, MCS

The information is written with the greatest of care. However, if you have any suggested amendments please contact us at office@prewarcar.com