Turner

US, 1900 – 1901

Turner Automobile Co, Philadelphia, Pa.

The Turner car company made very light voiturettes with bicycle-type tubular frames and rear-mounted engines. 1¼ and 3hp engines were used in the 3-wheeler Turner cars, called Turner Lilliputian and Turner Gadabout, and a 3hp engine in the Runabout 4-wheeler Turner car.

GB, 1906 – 1907, 1911 – 1930

Turner’s Motor Manufacturing Co Ltd, Wolverhampton, Staffs.

One of the more interesting aspects of this Turner car company’s operations is the diversity of machines they produced for other firms. Up to 1906 their staple product had been the Turner-Miesse steam car, but for the 1907 season only they brought out a 20/25hp petrol-Seymour-Turner car, made for Seymours of London. This Turner car was a conventional 4.1-litre, L-head 4-cylinder vehicle with high-tension magneto ignition, 4-speed gearbox, gate change, and shaft drive. Steam then engaged all the efforts of the Turner car company again until 1911, when they introduced the 1.100cc V-twin Turner cyclecar with tubular frame, 2-speed constant-mesh gearbox and worm drive, and cycle-type wings.

A similar gearbox and transmission were used in the Turner Ten of 1912, which Turner car had a 4-cylinder sv engine and this Turner car sold for £200, while there was also a more conventional 2.1-litre bevel-driven Turner Fifteen at £320.

After the demise of the steamers by Turner cars in 1913, the 10hp Turner car came to the fore, now with 3 forward speeds; there was also a 4-speed sporting version Turner car with a V-radiator and the unusual combination of wire wheels and detachable rims, at £250. The sub-variants of this Turner Ten were made for outside companies. The J.B., intended for sale in the Colonies by John Birch and Co, had a raised ground clearance and the sports car’s wire hweels, while the Turner Universal of 1914 (sometimes regarded as a make in its own right) was a standard Turner car chassis fitted with drophead coupé, bodywork and electric lighting as standard, and retailing at £250 (or at £276 5s with a starter). A bigger 12/20hp 2.2-litre Turner car on similar lines (also listed in Universal form) was on the market by the outbrak of World War 1.

Turner cars post-war private car production was on a very modest scale, and did not get under way again until 1922, though in the immediate post-1918 period the Turner car firm built Varley-Woods chassis for H.S. Motors Ltd of London. The Turner cars proper were still worm-drive 4-cylinder machines with sv monobloc engines; 1.8-litre models Turner cars had fixed cylinder heads whereas those on the 2.3-litre Turner cars were detachable, and 4-speed gearboxes were standard on Turner cars. In 1923 the smaller Turner car was fitted with a 1½-litre sv Dorman engine with a 3-bearing crankshaft and detachable head, and at the same time bevel drive was adopted on Turner cars; also bevel-driven was a 2.1-litre Turner Colonial model of 1924 with the ohv Meadows unit, which first supplemented and then supplanted the 14/30hp Turner car.

After 1926 only the 12hp Turner car was made, but though front-wheel brakes were standardized on Turner cars for 1928, this was virtually the end for the Turner car. Even the buyers’ guides ceased to quote the Turner car make after 1930. The Turner car company, however, remained active as manufacturers of components, and as late as 1954 the Turner car company announced a complete front wheel drive unit suitable for mini-buses. This used their own Turner car make of 1.4-litre, 2-cylinder, 2-stroke supercharged diesel engines, developing 37.5bhp.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; GNG, MCS

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