Lost British engineering

[Richard Farrant]

Originally Posted by Lang

Have you read "Whatever Happened to the British Motorcycle Industry" by Bert Hopwood? It is a littany of unmitigated marketing incompetence, penny pinching and hopeless quality control going back to the 1920's. In the pre-60 period they had bikes the Americans (their main market) wanted - for some reason the Americans continued to build what is now called a "cruiser" and very few "sports" bikes.

Hi Lang,

Yes I have read that book, and do understand what you say. I was an avid buyer of BSA motorcycles when they were still in production, and would not think of buying a Jap bike, they certainly did not turn me on, in fact the next best to Brit bikes to me was Italian and I had two new Moto Guzzi bikes, but that is another story.

As a point of interest, BSA started producing front wheel drive cars in 1929, that is five years before Citroen came out with front wheel drive !

I suppose what ever example we pick out, someone will have thought of something similar before that !

cheers, Richard