Made in the Midlands

For generations of Birmingham families, the initials did not merely identify the badge on a petrol tank. BSA meant a wage packet, an apprenticeship, the sound of machinery through an open factory window and thousands of people streaming through the gates at the change of shift.

Royal Enfield presents one of the strangest and most revealing stories in British motorcycling. The Redditch factory closed, the British company disappeared and the site was sold—yet the motorcycle name not only survived but eventually became stronger than it had been for decades.

Ask riders to name the great British motorcycle manufacturers and the familiar badges arrive quickly: BSA, Triumph, Norton, Royal Enfield and perhaps Matchless or Ariel.

Villiers may take longer.

Yet for decades, countless motorcycles existed because Villiers supplied the component their manufacturers could not afford to design and build themselves—the engine.

The dates beneath it—1880 to 1938—cover almost six decades of industrial change. During that period the people connected with Rudge made tricycles, bicycles, motorcycles, patent spoked wheels and ammunition. The list reads like a miniature history of the Midlands: specialist skills moving from one product to another as technology, markets and national needs changed.

Why were so many British motorcycles made in Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton and the towns surrounding them?

It is tempting to answer with a list of famous badges. BSA and Norton belonged to Birmingham; Triumph and Rudge to Coventry; AJS and Sunbeam to Wolverhampton; Royal Enfield to Redditch. Ariel, Velocette, Clyno, Francis-Barnett and Villiers add still more names to a remarkably crowded map.