Since the war, the Humber name has been synonymous with long, dark saloons ferrying politicians and stockbrokers around town, or cruising up the A1 to an important business meeting, some company director seated in the back behind a copy of The Times, sinking into its sofa-like bench seat. It hardly needs to be said, though, that one of the oldest players in Britain’s automotive industry had rather more humble beginnings, and the tiny Humberette of 1903 probably did more than anything else to make its name as a car-maker.
Prior to the automobile age, Humber was already well-known, having risen to prominence as a cycle-maker during the great Victorian bicycle boom alongside Rover, Singer, Sunbeam, Hillman, Herbert & Cooper, et al. As the internal combustion engine started to take off, it was a natural progression to install one inside a bicycle frame, which Humber did in 1896, and thereafter became a maker of fully-fledged motorcycles.
Apart from an experimental electric car of 1895, Humber’s first cars also appeared in 1896, as series car production was only just getting off the ground in Britain. The Three-Wheel Motor Carriage was not an original design, however, but a licensed copy of the French Léon Bollée forecar. Some quite eccentric new models appeared later, including
