Cars like the Bond could only have prospered in a motoring climate which was starved of both cars and fuel – which explains why these ingeniously-detailed three-wheelers were so successful in the 1940s and 1950s. Over the years, several generations were produced around the same basic structure, where the engine was mounted close to the single front wheel, driving and steering with it; reverse gear was not offered.
Lawrie Bond, sometimes described as an eccentric genius, designed the original car before selling the manufacturing rights to Sharps Commercials of Preston, Lancashire, who were soon building 15 cars every week. The Minicar’s secret was its tiny, two-seater size, its light but amazingly effective aluminium structure (there was no separate chassis), and for the way the air-cooled single-cylinder motor cycle-type engine was arranged to drive the single front wheel by chain, and to pivot with that wheel when it was turned to steer the car.
Crude in almost every other way, it was nevertheless an amazingly compact little car: the original models had no rear suspension, (the rear wheels’ only function was to keep the rear end of the car off the ground), 30 mph was really the limit of the cruising speed, and creature comforts were in line with the low price.
Lacking a reverse gear, it could be driven by anyone possessing a motor cycle licence, though because the front wheel could be steered to a full 90 degrees in each direction on later cars, the lack of that reverse was no big loss; the Minicar, quite literally, could turn in its own length. |
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Yet, for all this, the original Minicar cost only £199 (half the price of a Morris Minor), there was a serviceable hood and removable side screens, the cars often returned an amazing 100 mpg on two-stroke fuel, and they would not, of course, rust. To drive and enjoy a Bond, however, needed a certain attitude of mind, for all journeys tended to be slow, long and tedious, the driver always felt vulnerable when surrounded by other traffic, and if social status mattered to him, he was advised to choose another mode of transport.
Many ex-motorcyclists, and marginal motorists, shrugged off all this, and a whole series of Minicars, which became progressively larger, more streamlined, and more expensive, followed, until the last was produced in 1966. By then Sharps had turned to producing the Bond Equipe sports coupé, a much more upmarket machine – yet 26,500 Minicar sales, in 18 years, told its own success story. In spite of their rust-resistant construction, very few seem to have survived.
These three-wheelers were very successful due to their tiny size and their rust-free aluminium structure. They had no reverse gear and could be driven by anyone with a motorcycle licence.
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