The story
History
Lawrie Bond had worked as an aircraft designer at Blackburn during the war, then ran a small engineering business in Blackpool that moved to Longridge, near Preston.source 1 He also built 500 cc racing cars: a racing special nicknamed the “Doodlebug” made its debut in 1947 and finished fifth, though Lancashire County Council’s history says he was never especially successful as a racer (more in the designers).source 2 In May 1948 The Motor reported his “New Runabout at Under £200”, a tiny aluminium car he had built in Berry Lane, Longridge, where a blue plaque now marks the spot.source 1source 2 It had a 125 cc Villiers engine and three speeds, weighed 195 lb dry, cruised at about 30 mph and climbed a 25 per cent gradient with two aboard. The press described it as a short-radius runabout for shopping and calls within 20 or 30 miles.source 1
His workshop was too small to build it in numbers; by the Weiner museum’s account the prototype had to be lowered through a hole in an upper floor to reach the ground.source 3 Sharp’s Commercials of Preston, a motor trader founded in 1922 and part of the Loxhams and Bradshaw Group, had a large works whose post-war contract, rebuilding military vehicles for the Ministry of Supply, was due to end in 1948.source 4source 5source 1 Bond asked its managing director, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles “Reg” Gray, to rent him the factory. Gray refused, but offered to have Sharp’s build the car. Bond did some further development and then sold the design and the rights to Sharp’s.source 1source 6 The Bond Owners’ Club calls Gray the man without whom there would have been no Bond vehicles.source 5
The Minicar’s appeal was partly legal. As a light three-wheeler it paid less purchase tax and road tax than a car, cost less to insure, and its driver needed only a motorcycle licence.source 7source 1 In 1955 its road tax was £5 a year.source 8 Several accounts say it lacked a reverse gear so as to qualify for the motorcycle licence.source 7source 1 There is a kernel of truth in it: until about 1963, by a club history and a specialist site, a driver with only a motorcycle licence, or a learner driving alone, had to have any reverse gear blanked off.source 9source 10 But the tax turned on weight, never on reverse.source 11 And the Weiner museum’s panel for the Mark D says the reverse, when it came, particularly helped drivers who held only a motorcycle licence, which does not fit that rule.source 12
Mark A: no doors, no reverse
Production began in January 1949 with chassis A/1/1, an open two- or three-seat Tourer.source 13 Its body was a stressed skin of aluminium with no separate chassis, and its 122 cc Villiers 10D two-stroke sat at the front, on the single front wheel; engine, gearbox and wheel turned together when the car was steered, and a chain drove the wheel.source 13source 3source 8 There were no doors, a Perspex screen, three speeds and no reverse, steering by cable and bobbin, and no rear suspension but the tyres. Only the rear wheels had brakes, and the headlamps were mounted on the sides of the body. The driver started the engine with a pull-handle under the dash, which worked the kick-starter by cable. It weighed 310 lb (141 kg) and cost about £200, of which about £45 was purchase tax.source 13 Sharp’s began at 15 a week, and 90 per cent of early output was said to be reserved for export.source 3source 7source 1 Only after the Mark B arrived did the first car become the “Mark A”.source 14source 1
In October 1949 a hand-cranked lever that turned a rear hub, for reversing, was shown at Earls Court as an option, and in December a Deluxe Tourer followed, with the 197 cc Villiers 6E, a spare wheel, a mirror and an electric wiper, at £212.source 1source 13 From October 1950 every car had rack-and-pinion steering, and the Deluxe a Triplex glass screen.source 13 On a test run from Preston to London a Minicar averaged 22.8 mph and 97 mpg; The Motor timed a Deluxe at 43.3 mph, with 0–30 mph in 13.6 seconds and 72 mpg.source 1 The side-mounted headlamps, the Weiner museum notes, tended to vibrate loose and end up pointing straight at the road.source 14
Motor Sport kept a Deluxe for two months in 1950, and it fell apart around the testers. In the paper’s own short summary five years later, a steering pulley fell off and was commandeered by some passing Sea Scouts; W. Boddy, who ran the test, later added a broken front wheel, a seized engine, a burnt-out plug, fading brakes and a failed magneto, though his retellings differ in the details. A Preston mechanic came down to mend it in a 122 cc Bond, and said he was giving in his notice rather than keep driving it.source 8source 15source 16 Even so, the car cruised at 45 mph and gave about 80 mpg, and the testers stayed fond of it.source 15 To change a wheel, Boddy remembered, you laid the car on its side, and the Perspex screen scratched until night driving was like a perpetual mist.source 15 He also recalled what The Motor’s technical editor made of it.
It has a sort of sordid satisfaction, like picking at a scab.
Marks B and C: the classic shape
The Mark B, built from April 1951 and launched that July, had coil-spring rear suspension, a hydraulic damper at the front, a bigger boot and a reshaped hood; much of the work, especially the rear suspension, is credited to Granville Bradshaw, the brother of the group’s chairman.source 17source 14source 1 Purchase tax had more than doubled since 1949, and the Mark B cost £335 18s 10d, of which £120 18s 10d was tax. From November 1951, 94 cars had a factory-fitted door.source 17 The vans and pick-ups of 1952 are told with the Bond Ranger, below.
The Mark C of October 1952 set the look most people remember. Dummy front wings carried the headlamps; worm-and-sector steering gave 90 degrees of lock each way; the rear wheels hung on Flexitor bonded-rubber trailing arms, designed by George Spencer Moulton; and there were brakes on all three wheels.source 18source 19 It was 9 ft 10 in (2,997 mm) long and weighed 460 lb (209 kg).source 18source 19 Three pre-production cars had been shown at Earls Court in November 1951, but supply problems held production back for a year.source 1 In 1953 the Mark C gained the 8E engine; in March 1954 came the Family Safety model, with two inward-facing hammock seats for children; and from 1953 Bond tried glass-fibre panels, making the Minicar among the first British cars to use them, with glass-fibre bonnets in production from December 1954.source 18source 1 In February 1953 a Mark C was fitted with hand controls and submitted for Ministry of Pensions approval (see the Invacar).source 18
Minicars went abroad in kit form to Portugal, Dublin and Uruguay, and to Moscow in August 1954, painted, the club’s records note, “Red. (Naturally!)”. Left-hand-drive cars with semaphore indicators went to the United States in 1953, where Craven and Hedrick of New York sold them as the Sharp’s Bear Cub, with little success.source 18source 1 Motor Sport tested a Mark C Family for a fortnight in 1955. Its engine was so low-geared that at an indicated 40 mph it made a very considerable racket; the gear positions were evasive, neutral especially; the clutch was feather-light and the steering heavy; and getting in through the single door took contortions.source 8
Moreover, no modern car can be possessed of less powerful brakes.
The Bond has a fantastic steering lock and with a wheelbase of only 5 ft. 6 in. can be steered so as to poke its pivoted power-unit pretty well up its own exhaust pipe.
The editor offered a cup, of china and for tea, to anyone who reached full cruising speed on full lock. The verdict was affectionate all the same: life, the tester wrote, would be less droll without the modern minicars.source 8 Boddy, reviewing his year, found the Mark C infinitely better than its predecessor, with an electric starter at last. He covered 464 miles in a week, averaged over 30 mph and about 60 mpg, and took the Bond instead of his Morgan to a midnight meeting on a night of ice and sleet; it captivated his children, though his wife lamented the lack of a driver’s door when a blocked fuel line stopped them.source 20
Mark D: reverse by running backwards
The Mark D of May 1956 kept the body but had the Villiers 9E, a four-plate clutch, a heavier chain, a higher top gear and 12-volt electrics.source 21source 12 The Deluxe cars had a Siba Dynastart, and for the 1957 season it could be had wired to start the two-stroke backwards, through a second set of contact points: every gear then worked in reverse, though first was the one to use. The first car recorded with it was a Family Safety in December 1956, at £345 9s 3d.source 21source 12 The petrol shortage after Suez in 1956 helped sales, and the Weiner museum puts output at 100 a week.source 7source 12 Four speeds came in 1958.source 21
Mark E: a new car
The Mark E, announced on 31 October 1956, was all new: a steel box-section chassis under a flat-sided body with two doors, 7-inch headlamps, flashing indicators and seats that tipped forward to reach the luggage.source 1source 22 Demand for the Mark D was so strong that production waited a year, and factory testing in 1957 found the prototype seriously unstable, which was blamed on its long wheelbase and narrow track.source 22source 23source 1 The production Tourers, from October 1957, had the wheelbase cut from 6 ft 6 in to 5 ft 6 in, the track widened to 4 ft 5 in and flared rear wings that made the car 5 ft wide; the weight rose to 672 lb.source 22 Only 1,180 or so were built, in 11 months beside the Mark D.source 23source 22
On 5 December 1958, when the Preston By-pass opened as Britain’s first motorway, three Mark Es led the traffic onto it, driven by Doug Ferreira, the draughtsman Alan Pounder and the production manager John Woods; an Austin-Healey Sprite that had arrived first was reportedly persuaded to make way.source 1
Marks F and G
The Mark F of November 1958 put a 250 cc Villiers single and four speeds into the Mark E’s body, with the reversing Dynastart available for £9 17s. It was the most practical Minicar, and output rose by 150 per cent.source 24source 23 There were Tourers, Saloon Coupés and a Family Saloon with forward-facing hammock seats for children, and from 1960 the Ranger van.source 24 In January 1960 Sharp’s built Colonel Gray a special Tourer, the “White Lady”: white, with leopard-skin seats, a radio and a tuned engine said to be good for 60 mph.source 24
The Mark G of August 1961, the “250G”, had a new roof with a reverse-rake rear window, wind-up windows and quarter-lights, lockable doors, a proper rear bench, 10-inch wheels and hydraulic front brakes. It was 11 ft 0 in (3,353 mm) long, weighed 826 lb (375 kg) and cost £395 8s 4d.source 25source 23 An estate followed in June 1962, and from November 1962 the Villiers 4T twin, of 14.6 bhp, good for just over 60 mph.source 25source 1 That year an estate, SCK 787, fitted with the twin, made a 24-hour publicity run on the M1.source 25
The tax that killed it
In April 1962 the purchase tax on four-wheeled cars fell from 55 to 45 per cent, and in November to 25 per cent, the three-wheelers’ rate. Sharp’s chief, Tom Gratrix, telegraphed the Chancellor warning of 300 redundancies, but no relief came.source 1 Saloon production ended in October 1965, the Tourer’s around the new year and the Ranger’s and estate’s in April 1966.source 25 The last fully assembled Minicar, a Wedgwood Blue estate, FUF 732D, was tested on 7 May 1966. The very last, an engineless estate in primer, left for Greece after its test on 3 December 1966.source 25
By then the firm was Bond Cars Ltd, renamed in October 1963, 1964 or 1965 by different accounts, and it had the four-wheeled Equipe and, from 1966, the Imp-engined Bond 875.source 1source 5source 4 In 1968 Dutton-Forshaw bought the Loxhams and Bradshaw Group and offered Bond for sale. When its managers failed to buy it themselves, Reliant, the old rival from Tamworth, took it over in February 1969. The Preston factory closed in December 1970, and the Bond name ended with the Bond Bug in 1974.source 5 Lawrie Bond himself had left soon after production began, and later Marks were Sharp’s work, by Granville Bradshaw and the chief design engineer Alan Pounder.source 5source 1 Boddy, reviewing Bond’s biography in 1994, still called the Minicar something of a disaster.source 26
