“The styling is very futuristic for its time, and it’s one of the first electric-start bikes to be offered for sale anywhere in the world.”
Compared to war-ravaged Italy, France and Germany, bombed-out Britain didn’t experience the same post-Second World War boom in new motorcycle registrations, despite a similar chronic lack of personal transportation. That’s because the UK Government prioritised earning precious foreign currency – principally, US dollars – over the convenience of its population, by exporting the products of the various local motorcycle manufacturers in return for granting them access to postwar stocks of scarce materials like steel, aluminium and rubber. So new motorcycles for British customers were hard to obtain, and much prized.
It was a situation ripe for the entrepreneurial talents of a well-connected person like Kaye Don, who founded the Ambassador Motorcycle Company in Ascot, Berkshire in 1946, to provide a range of basic transportation models powered by the 197cc Villiers 5E two-stroke motor, with a bolted-on three-speed gearbox. Don was a man whose life story is strictly Hollywood, though no movie script could do justice to the breadth of achievement this undoubtedly brave and determined individual managed to accomplish during his 90 years on earth, ending on August 29, 1981.
Born Karl Ernest Donsky in 1891 to Polish parents living in Dublin – then a part of the UK, hence he was British – he adopted the sobriquet of Kaye Don in joining the Avon Rubber Company in Melksham, Wiltshire, at the age of 17. Already an avid motorcyclist since the early days of such devices, he rode bikes like Zeniths and a Diamond to numerous records at Brooklands, in between working his way up the Avon management
