Made in the Midlands — motorcycle history

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.

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.