A world beater
The background
To East Anglians (adopted in my case) and others, the Greeves story is legend. Of English parentage, Invacar founder Oscar Bertrum Greeves (b.1906, Lyon), rather than follow his father into the leather trade, was apprenticed to Austin cars and later worked as a draughtsman to dynamometer makers Heenan and Froude, before setting up a small garage business in Surrey with his brother, which was involved with small mechanical and engineering jobs for the Government during the Second World War until targeted by a German rocket in early 1945.
Out of hours, Bert Greeves motorised a wheelchair for his near paraplegic cousin Derry Preston-Cobb (Derry had some right hand movement) with a small Villiers two-stroke engine. This development encouraged Bert to set up Invacar Ltd, initially at Westcliff-on-Sea, where limited production began in 1946. Invacar was a success story, in part because Greeves designed complete control systems which could be operated by a single hand. Invacar moved to new larger premises at Thundersley, Essex in 1950.
Folklore informs Bert needed to test new rubber in torsion suspension systems destined for the new model Invacar. It is worth noting Bert Greeves was a keen motorcyclist since the early 1920s, so the thought he wanted to build his own motorcycle can’t be overlooked. It’s believed he wanted to use a 250/350cc ohv JAP engine, but the London maker couldn't supply one, so he turned to what he knew, the Villiers engines his firm fitted to Invacars.
Research suggests the new Invacar motorcycle was a ‘best kept secret,’ and the first surfaced courtesy May 10, 1951, who concentrated on the roadster – significantly, there was a scrambler too. Signs of what was to come abounded in these machines, including double cradle design, large diameter tube serving as backbone and rubber in torsion at both ends, initially trailing link to front.
