British three-wheelers of the 1920s and 1930s

When the cyclecar boom ended, the three-wheeler kept a market, because in Britain a three-wheeler under 8 cwt (406 kg) was taxed as a motorcycle.source 1 The Morgan Three-Wheeler has its own page; this one is about the others, who kept the idea alive from 1926 until the war and handed it on to Reliant.

Thomas Morton and William Arthur Weaver founded Morton & Weaver in 1904 as engineers and toolmakers in Hillfields, Coventry, and built horizontally opposed engines from the start; the firm became the Coventry-Victor Motor Co. in 1911.source 2source 3 One of their engines powered Weaver’s Ornithoplane. Grace’s Guide dates that to 1906, while English Wikipedia, which counts the earlier attempts as short hops, has the Ornithoplane No. 2 flying a quarter of a mile at Hampton-in-Arden on 17 May 1910, the first monoplane to fly in Britain.source 2source 3 Coventry-Victor sold engines to motorcycle and cyclecar makers, Grahame-White especially, and built flat-twin motorcycles of its own from 1919.source 2source 3 In December 1919 The Motor Cycle described a prototype four-wheeler with a 750 cc water-cooled flat-twin and a body of aeroplane fabric over wooden laths.source 3

The car that went on sale, in 1926, was the Midget: a two-seat three-wheeler from £75, with its two wheels in front, a flat-twin at the front and a chain to the single wheel at the back. There was a two-speed gearbox, and early cars had a single foot brake, on the transmission. Over the years the twin grew from 688 cc to 749, 850 and finally 998 cc, with side valves or overhead valves, air- or water-cooling, and the range ran to Standard, Sports, Super Sports, De-luxe and a Parcelcar. Later sports models gained front brakes, electric starting and reverse.source 2source 3 A. G. F. Nash controlled the company in 1927, and at Olympia in 1929 its advertising made the case for the whole class.source 3

In 1932 came the Luxury Sports, styled by C. F. Beauvais, with three speeds, from £110; the older models carried on beside it, and car production ended in 1938.source 2source 3 After the war Coventry-Victor built a prototype with a 747 cc flat-four, the Venus. Six were reportedly made and all were ordered destroyed, but one survives. The company was wound up in January 1971.source 2

BSA Cycles of Birmingham, part of the Birmingham Small Arms group, had built cars before the First World War and a V-twin light car in 1921.source 4source 5 Its three-wheeler of 1929 had an air-cooled V-twin, based on a Hotchkiss design, driving its two front wheels, which were independently sprung; there was reverse, an electric starter and full weather protection, and the whole was kept under the 8 cwt limit.source 1source 6 How big the twin was is not settled: sources give 900, 1,021 and 1,039 cc.source 1source 6source 4 A van, the TW-5, followed in 1931, and a four-wheeled version, the FW32, lasted only through 1932.source 4source 5

In September 1932 BSA’s directors announced a four-cylinder three-wheeler with an engine “identical in essential details” to that of the firm’s open four-seater.source 4 The water-cooled 1,075 cc four arrived in 1933, in the models known as the TW-33-10 and TW-34-10, and BSA dropped its three-wheelers in 1936.source 4source 5source 1 About 5,200 are said to have been built from 1930, but that figure comes only from a search-result summary.source 6

Raleigh, the Nottingham bicycle maker founded in 1885, had built a tricar before, the Raleighette of 1903–⁠08.source 7 In 1930 it bought the rights to the Ivy Karryall (Grace’s Guide also says it came from the James Karryall) and built it as the Light Delivery Van, designed by T. L. Williams: a single front wheel, a 598 cc single, chain drive and a payload of 5 cwt. It was made for three years, and a version for two passengers followed in 1933.source 8source 9

Raleigh’s first three-wheeled car, the Safety Seven of 1933, put its single wheel at the front. It was an aluminium-bodied four-seat convertible tourer with a 742 cc air-cooled V-twin, three speeds and reverse, and shaft drive to the rear wheels; it would do 55 mph (89 km/h).source 8source 7source 10 A Sports Tourer followed in 1934 and a saloon was planned.source 8source 7 In 1935 one cost 99 guineas.source 11 Search results credit Raleigh with 3,000 Safety Sevens, a figure not checked against the page it comes from.source 10 But Raleigh wanted to make bicycles. Its commercial vehicles ended in 1935 and its cars in 1936.source 8source 12

Williams, by then chief designer of Raleigh’s motor department, left in the summer of 1934 and set up a design office in his garden shed in Tamworth, where the foreman E. S. “Tommo” Thompson joined him.source 9 When Raleigh shut its motor department he took its equipment and its leftover parts, and the parts carried an R, which gave the new firm its name: Reliant.source 8source 7source 9 A prototype van ran in the autumn of 1934, and The Commercial Motor, testing it in 1935, got 54.4 mpg. In the spring of 1935 the works moved to a former Midland Red bus garage at Two Gates, and in June the first Reliant was delivered: a 7 cwt van with a 600 cc JAP single, by Dan Lockton’s account, though Grace’s Guide says the first design had a 750 cc V-twin.source 9source 8

Williams’s rule, as Lockton reports it, was not to pay anyone else to make what Reliant could make itself.source 9 A 10 cwt van with a 747 cc water-cooled JAP V-twin of 18 bhp came in March 1936. Output rose from three to five vehicles a week that year to eight to ten in 1937.source 9 In 1938, or 1939 by Grace’s Guide, the vans took the four-cylinder engine of the Austin Seven, and Reliant’s own 747.5 cc side-valve copy of it first ran on 3 September 1939. Eighty were built before war work took over.source 9source 8 Reliant’s four-seat car, the Reliant Regal, came after the war, in 1952–⁠53.source 8

No count of survivors has been found for any of the four makers. The one Coventry-Victor Venus that escaped destruction is in the Coventry Transport Museum.source 2 A BSA TW-33-10 was shown at the exhibition “110 ans de l’automobile” at the Grand Palais in Paris, and Grace’s Guide pictures a 1934 TW 34-10 registered GL 1362.source 4source 5 A Raleigh Safety Seven of 1935 has stayed in its first owner’s family and was restored in 1998. Its owner, Martin Strange, tells the family story of climbing Birdlip Hill in it in reverse, because first gear was too high, and is frank about its handling.source 11