BSA The Birmingham Small Arms company produced a lot more than just motorcycles. Planes, taxi’s, guns and much more. Of course motorcycles was a huge part of the companies activities and by 1950’s they were producing more than 75.000 bikes.

History
BSA was founded in 1861 in the Gun Quarter, Birmingham, England by fourteen gunsmiths of the Birmingham Small Arms Trade Association, who had together supplied arms to the British government during the Crimean War. The company branched out as the gun trade declined; in the 1870s they manufactured the Otto Dicycle, in the 1880s the company began to manufacture bicycles and in 1903 the company's first experimental motorcycle was constructed. Their first prototype automobile was produced in 1907 and the next year the company sold 150 automobiles. By 1909 they were offering a number of motorcycles for sale and in 1910 BSA purchased the British Daimler Company for its automobile engines.

World War One
During World War I, the company returned to arms manufacture and greatly expanded its operations. BSA produced rifles and Lewis guns, but also shells, motorcycles and other vehicles for the struggle.

Inter-War years
In 1920, it bought some of the assets of the Aircraft Manufacturing Company (Airco) which had built many important aircraft during the war but had become bankrupt with the lack or orders post hostilities. BSA did not go into aviation; the chief designer of Airco founded the de Havilland company.

As well as the Daimler car range, BSA re-entered the car market under their own name in 1921 with a V twin engined light car followed by four cylinder models up to 1926 when the name was temporarily dropped. In 1929 a new range of 3 and 4 wheel cars appeared and production of these continued until 1936.

In the 1930's the board of directors authorised expenditure on bringing their arms-making equipment back to use - it had been stored at company expense since the end of the Great War in the belief that BSA might again be called upon to perform its patriotic duty.

In 1931 the Lanchester Motor Company was acquired and production of their cars transferred to Daimler's Coventry works.

World War Two
By World War II, BSA had 67 factories and was well positioned to meet the demand for guns and ammunition. BSA operations were also dispersed to other companies under licence. During the war it produced over a million Lee-Enfield rifles and half a million Browning machine guns. Wartime demands included motorcycle production. BSA supplied 126,000 M20 motorcycles to the armed forces, from 1937 (and later until 1950) plus military bicycles including the folding paratrooper bicycle. At the same time, the Daimler concern was producing armoured cars.

Post war
Post-war, BSA continued to expand the range of metal goods it produced. The BSA Group bought Triumph Motorcycles in 1951, making them the largest producer of motorcycles in the world. The cycle and motor cycle interests of Ariel, Sunbeam and New Hudson were also acquired.

In 1960 Daimler was sold off to Jaguar.

The BSA bicycle arm was sold off to Raleigh in 1957. Bicycles under the BSA name are currently manufactured and distributed within India by TI Cycles of India.

The production of guns bearing the BSA name continued beyond the 1957 sale of the bicycle division, but in 1986 BSA Guns was liquidated, the assets bought and renamed BSA Guns (UK) Ltd. The company continues to make air rifles and shotguns, and are still based in Small Heath in Birmingham.

Norton-Villiers-Triumph
The Group continued to expand and acquire throughout the 1950s but by 1965 competition from Japan (in the shape of companies like Honda) and Germany was eroding BSA's market share. The BSA (and Triumph range) were no longer aligned with the markets; mopeds were displacing scooter sales, superbikes were up at 1000cc and the trials and scrambles areas were now the preserve of two-strokes. Some poor marketing decisions and expensive projects contributed to substantial losses. For example, the development and production investment of the Ariel 3, an ultrastable 3 wheel scooter, was not recouped by sales; the loss has been estimated at some 2 million pounds.

Reorginization in 1971 concentrated motorcycle production at Meriden, Triumphs site, with production of components and engines at BSA's Small Heath. At the same time there were redundancies and the selling of assets. Barclays Bank arranged financial backing to the tune of 10 million.

By 1972, BSA was so moribund that with bankruptcy immiment, and with government backing its motorcycle businesses were absorbed into the Manganese Bronze company, Norton-Villiers, which became Norton-Villiers-Triumph with the intention of producing and marketing Norton and Triumph motorcycles. The shareholders of BSA confirmed the deal. Although the BSA name was left out of the new company's name, a few products continued to be made carrying it until 1973. The final range was just four models: Gold Star 500, 650 Thunderbird/Lightning and the 750cc Rocket Three.

However, the plan involved the axing of some brands, large reduncancies and consolidation of production at two sites, the plans to rescue and combine Norton, BSA and Triumph failed in the face of worker resistance. Norton's and BSA's factories were eventuallyshut down, while Triumph staggered on to fail four years later.

Out of the ashes of recievership, the NVT Motorcycles Ltd company which owned the rights to the BSA marque, was bought-out by the management and renamed the BSA Company.

The BSA bicyle arm had been sold to Raleigh in 1956 and the BSA Winged-B logo was still seen for while on up-market bicycles.

Limited revival
The BSA company produced military motorcycles (with Rotax engines) and motorcycles for developing countries (with Yamaha engines) under the BSA name. In the later case the old "Bushman" name was recalled to duty - it had been previously used on high ground clearance Bantams sold for the likes of Australian sheep farmers.

In 1991, the BSA (motorcycle) Company merged with Andover Norton International Ltd., to form a new BSA Group, largely producing spare parts for existing motorcycles. In December 1994, BSA Group was taken over by a newly formed BSA Regal Group. The new company, based in Southampton, has a large spares business and has produced a number of limited-edition, retro-styled motorcycles.

Motorcycles
The first wholly BSA motorcycles were built in 1910, before then engines had come from other manufacturers. BSA Motorcycles Ltd was set up as a subsidiary in 1919.

BSA motorcycles were sold as affordable motorcycles with reasonable performance for the average user. BSA stressed the reliability of their machines, the availability of spares and dealer support. The motorcycles were a mixture of sidevalve and OHV engines offering different performance for different roles eg hauling a sidecar. The bulk of use would be for commuting. BSA motorcycles were also popuilar with "fleet buyers" in Britain such as the Post Office or Automobile Association (AA) breakdown help services. This mass market appeal meant they could claim "one in four is a BSA" on advertising.

Machines with better specifications were available for those who wanted more performance or for competition work.

Initially, after World War II, BSA motorcylces were not generally seen as racing machines, compared to the likes of Norton. In the immediate post war period few were entered in races such as the TT races, though this changed dramatically in the Junior Clubman event (smaller engine motorcycles racing over some 3 or 4 laps around one of the Isle of Man courses). In 1947 there were but a couple of BSA mounted riders, by 1952 however, BSA were in the majority and in 1956 the makeup was 53 BSA, 1 Norton and 1 Velocette.

To improve US sales, in 1954, for example, BSA entered a team of riders in the 200 mile Daytona beach race with a mixture of single cylinder Gold Stars and twin cylinder Shooting Stars assembled by Roland Pike. The BSA team riders amazingly took first, second, third, fourth, and fifth places with two more riders finishing at 8th and 16th. This was the first case of a one brand sweep.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "BSA".