BSA of Birmingham was famous for many years as a manufacturer of guns and other armaments, before it started to make cars. The fact that it was already producing motor cycles, and had acquired Daimler in 1910, must have influenced its plan to produce small, cheap, cars, as a half-way house between the two types.
Although the original BSA car of 1921–25 was a four-wheeler with an air-cooled power unit, the second model which followed in 1929, was a quirky and individualistic three-wheeler. With two front wheels and a single rear, but with front-wheel-drive (itself a real novelty) this was a distinctive and surprisingly successful car for the next few years. In seven years, until further rationalisation of the business ensued, BSA built at least 5,200 machines at its motorcycle factory at Small Heath, Birmingham.
Only a company as well founded as BSA could have produced a car like this, particularly as it reached maturity in the depths of Britain’s depression. Although Morgan had already linked air-cooled two-cylinder engines to three-wheeler motoring, this was the first British application of front-wheel-drive; on the BSA, the rear wheel’s only use was to hold the rear end of the ‘duck-tail’ bodywork off the ground. |
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The air-cooled 90-degree V-twin engine had overhead valves, and was a Hotchkiss design, a modified version of that used in the earlier BSA Ten of the early 1920s. Unlike any other engine of its day, it drove forward to a three-speed gearbox, which powered the front wheels, independent front suspension being by clusters of cantilever quarter-elliptic leaf springs.
Although this was no sports car (the engine, whose power was not stated, was not nearly as powerful as that of the Morgan three-wheeler) it was a brisk and surprisingly willing runabout, usually sold as a rather flimsily built two-seater (or three-abreast, if everyone was friendly) soft-top. Cruising speeds were no higher than 40 mph, but with complete car prices starting at no more than £130, it was an intriguing alternative to contemporary four-wheelers like the Austin Seven and the Morris Minor.
BSA persevered with this car for several years, making a few four-wheeler models (FW32 types) in 1932, while a four-cylinder water-cooled engine type followed in 1933.
The chassis frame was simplicity itself, with members surrounding the engine/transmission unit, and with a single backbone member leading back to a neat cantilever spring/trailing link type of rear wheel suspension.
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