British motorcycle history

[Remima]

Hello !

I’m a French journalist student at the European Journalism Institute in Marseille. I am writing an article on the British motorcycle industry history. I need some information and different points of view. Are you able to give me some time and to answer the following questions ?

What allowed the British motorcycle industry to be the most important and most famous industry in the world before the 1950s - 1960s? Which were the factors?

How do you explain the death of their motorcycle industry? Was that due to Japanese invasion, management failure by manufacturer, economic background or other reasons?

During which years British motorcycles began to be replaced by Japanese ones?

Why people began to replace their British motorcycles for Japanese ones?

What are your views about this story?

I identified 3 different periods for the British motorcycle industry. The first one, from the 1900s - 1910s to 1950, was a flourishing period. The second one, from the 1960s - 197s0 to 2000, was a period of decline, and the third one: the resurgence since 2000. Do you think these periods are spot on or no?

Thanks a lot for your help.

Rémi

[mini-me]

What a question.
I suggest you read "Whatever happened to the British motorcycle industry" by Bert Hopwood for a start.

'Motorcycle cavalcade' by Ixion for the early years


then put "decline and fall of the motorcycle industry" into google

It is incidentally a subject that has been done to death here in Uk.

Personally, having worked for a short while in one of the last remaining factories I am convinced it was government intent. Certainly they were complicit in asset stripping.

do not expect concise, concurring or rational answers.

 bonne chance, et amities motard.

[iansoady]

Also worth a read is "The strange death of the British Motorcycle Industry" by Steve Koerner which started life as a doctoral thesis and "Save the Triumph Bonneville" by John Rosamond.

The trouble is you will end up with a whole lot of conflicting ideas.....

[R]

Its also worth considering the earlier history of motorcycles,
and the shifts in inventiveness and manufacturing over the various eras.

Its been stated that "the germans invented motorcycles",
that "then the french perfected motorcycles",
and that "the british marketed motorcycles to the world"
and there is more than a grain of truth in these statements.

And, if you take a wider view, its also worth remembering that Indian Motocycle in 1914 manufactured more 'motocycles' than the whole of the british motorcycle industry.

Also, in the 1970s Motobecane was the worlds largest maker - mopeds, mopeds mopeds.

And, for current trends, that there are currently more motorcycle manufacturers in China than in the whole of the rest of the world combined - and they make more motorcycles than the rest of the world.

What goes around comes around, as they say....

[Rex]

"The French perfected motorcycles"? I think that grain must be very small in that instance.
After all, how many were sold outside of the French sphere of influence and how many international (TT etc) race winners were there? They were still fitting little push-bike belt driven gennies up to the war, and exposed valves and total-loss oiling systems were common-place too. Many French manufacturers used JAP engines, or Villiers made under licence.
As to the OP's question, there's no easy two-line answer, and if an in-depth thesis (or whatever) is intended, then lots of searching and Googling will be needed.
Finally please disregard all the old jokes which have now assumed a mantle of truth with the advent of the 'Net; a perfect example is the good old "piece of wood levelling the mill at Bracebridge St and lost or disregarded by the time it reached Plumstead" story.
Passed on as the "truth" by people who've never been nearer to a "workshop" than the local council's LBGT Collective.

[mini-me]

Got to take issue with you there Rex.
Did not Norton use Peugeot engines ?  A lot of inovation from Peugeot, First side by side twin was made by Bleriot,  by the end of the 1920s french bikes has better brakes,better tyres than us, a 1929 Terrot has bigger brakes than my 1929 Sunbeam, Several makes produced 4 cylinder engines, lots of unit construction and general use of electric lights. Enclosed valve gear was another thing seen more than here

What stifled their industry was that their govt was more anti bike than ours and insurance was ridiculous.

[Rex]

Sure, they had their moments but in the days of the pioneering "let's try this" way of thinking many ideas were formulated and continued (or not) but I don't agree that they "perfected" motorbikes.
If I recall correctly, there was more than one big French order for bikes placed with the UK industry at the outbreak or during WW1. Duggie, Triumph? Clyno?

[mini-me]

ah, innovation is different from perfection. Never said that.

I think Sunbeam had an order from the French in WW1, and probably BSA and Triumph.

I don't believe they were able to make steel of the strength and lightness we could either, which is why so many of their bikes were robustly made.

[bikerbob]

If you read about the rise and fall of the BSA marque you will get a good perspective of what went wrong, there was no one single cause in my own opinion it was a combination of really very bad management government changes in the law and it has to be said strikes by the ordinary working man. A brief idea in regard to the afore mentioned reasons. Bsa owned Sunbeam Ariel and Triumph so in effect it was competing with itself when you think that take any of the Japanese manufacturers of the time Honda only made Honda motorcycles  Yamaha only made Yamaha bikes as did Suzuki also Kawasaki, also the management of the time relied too much on the loyalty of the British working man instead of taking on the Japanese manufacturers BSA had plenty of very good designers but the management refused to invest until it was too late. Also at that time the late fifties and maybe early sixties there were no regulations as to the size of bike you could ride you could  buy a 1000cc Vincent Black Shadow stick a couple of L plates on and away you go. When the government did change the law and limited learners to 250cc until they passed their test, learners had the choice of far superior Japanese small bikes and the British small bike market was the first to collapse. In regard to Strikes the british bike market  BSA and Triumph in particular also Norton were doing very well in America to the detriment at the time of Harley and Indian makers. Now in America the  bike buying was seasonal you had to have all your exports in the States at the beginning of the season what happened in 1970 was all the BSA and Triumph bikes were in the docks ready go when the dockers went on strike, BSA never really recovered from that strike and the Americans turned mainly to the Japanese. It is hard to understand how a company so big and diversified as BSA could not take on and beat the Japanese in 1959 BSA was the largest motorcycle producer in the world they owned numerous other companies such as Raliegh pedal cycles they owned Daimler cars Alfred Herbet machine tools they even owned a factory not far from where I live and made Caterpillar earth moving equipment under licence from Caterpillar in the USA, that factory is still there today but it is now owned by Komatsu making their own earth moving equipment.

[mini-me]

It is hard to understand how a company so big and diversified as BSA could not take on and beat the Japanese in 1959

management

check out Lord and Lady Docker. They bled BSA dry and buggered it up.

after the death of the last Collier Brother AMC management was similar, more interested in matching numbers on their Rolls Royces than anything else.

What you see here  is the seed sowing of the contempt for their workers and the buyers of their products that has led to todays backlash against the establishment, Brexit for example, the Eton boys and their pals know best.

[Rex]

The passage of time lends a different perspective on most of these events, and the book "Whatever happened to the British Motorcycle Industry"" was seen as a bible when published but since then has been criticised as one bitter old boy's take on things, and not entirely accurate or unbiased.
One thing which sticks in my mind is the aborted BSA Fury/Triumph Bandit bikes which were seen as possible life-savers by some (though I rather doubt that personally).
Nice looking bikes for the time, but then someone must have pointed out that there was 5000 ex-Bantam Lucas headlamp switches left in the stores, and they could be used to save a few bob on each bike.
The Germans and later the Japanese both proved that electrics didn't have to be expensive to work well, but good old Reginald Bleckinthorpe (chief accountant) must have his say, and saddle the new model with sh*t switches which had been proved never lasted in use.
Petty accountants over-riding designers and engineers...it can only ever end in tears, and it often did (and would have done here, had the launch not been aborted).
The upper echelons British attitude to industry has always been bad (like Thatcher and her disparaging comments re "tin-bashing industry") and sadly hasn't changed much it seems, and the Dockers with their silver-plated(?) Daimlers epitomised the "suck the juice out and never reinvest" attitudes.
A pox on them all, the parasites.

[mini-me]

Gold plated Rex,

you couldn't make it up,and evidently she had five of them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/classiccars/11087492/Luxury-limousine-that-nearly-brought-down-Daimler-to-go-under-the-hammer.html

[R]

In a strangely perverse world, RR are now selling cars with all the bling and more into china,
its more than half their total market.  Including whole slabs of gold plating. ..

Whether any motorcycle makers are buying them is another question though.

As to the french perfecting bikes, its not entirely related, since proper 'bikes' came a little later,
but De Dion had reportedly sold +40,000+ motors prior to 1901.
(makers bought an engine, and built a car/trike/conveyance around it)
Trikes were the name of the game back then, high fashion...
The french were light years ahead of everyone else at this.



Bit earlier than the OP's question, but related.
The British having a large empire to sell to is also related, in later eras.

[mini-me]

Thats nearly as ugly and impractical as the 3 wheeled rubbish I see about these days.

[iansoady]

It is hard to understand how a company so big and diversified as BSA could not take on and beat the Japanese in 1959

management

check out Lord and Lady Docker. They bled BSA dry and buggered it up.

after the death of the last Collier Brother AMC management was similar, more interested in matching numbers on their Rolls Royces than anything else.

What you see here  is the seed sowing of the contempt for their workers and the buyers of their products that has led to todays backlash against the establishment, Brexit for example, the Eton boys and their pals know best.

Absolutely. Sadly the results oif the backlash are likely to affect those disaffected people even more.