British Microcars 1947–2002

By Duncan Cameron

From the 1940s to the 1960s, the microcar posed a challenge to the large companies that mass-produced cars to uniform designs. The microcar was the opposite, produced by small entrepreneurial start-ups using quirky design concepts that offered motorists cheaper and more economical vehicles. This book is a beautifully illustrated history of the British microcar, from the early days of Bond and Reliant to the proliferation of micro marques during the 1950s and their demise during the 1960s. It explores many eccentric British concepts, comparing the cars to their influential European competitors, examining the social and economic reasons for the decline and disappearance of the microcar, but also saluting the signs of a microcar renaissance in the twenty-first century, this time from mainstream manufacturers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Jun 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781784422806

Duncan Cameron

Duncan Cameron worked for the British Council for many years and now is resident in Brighton, not far from the finishing line of the Veteran Car Run. He has been a contributor for many years to a series of educational books about international business. He became fascinated by cars in the 1950s after his mother bought an Isetta, and still has a photographic memory for cars of that period.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

This book is about very small British three- and four-wheeled cars, from the first models in the austere late 1940s until their gradual demise during the affluent 1960s onwards. These marques were largely created by independent entrepreneurs and manufacturers, with a bias towards unconventional and sometimes eccentric designs.

After 1945, living standards were lower than in 1939 and the later economic boom in Britain and Western Europe was by no means inevitable. Economic austerity had, perhaps, created a demand for small cheap vehicles – three-wheelers, bubble cars, baby cars, runabouts. The large British-based firms like Ford, Vauxhall and Austin concentrated on easy export sales and were not interested in exploring a new niche home market.

The Bond Minicar was one of the key microcars of the era. There was just enough room in this Family Four for small children, but fully laden its tiny motor would have struggled on hills and main roads.

However, Britain was, despite being impoverished by six years of war, a country bulging with industrial muscle, and any enterprise lucky enough to have worked for Britain’s war machine was flush with six years’ full-capacity, well-paid and profitable production, with minimal sales and marketing costs behind them. Not a bad time to launch an individualistic manufacturing venture – and a surprising number of individuals took the plunge into this (literally) small market.

In the years immediately following the end of the Second World War, new microcar marques appeared all over the industrial world but many designs never got further than the drawing board, or a single prototype at a motor show. Many had a short life – but in the United Kingdom they lasted longest.

The big mass-producers of family cars in the UK made motors very similar to each other, following a pattern developed in the early twentieth century: four wheels, a water-cooled engine ahead of two front seats and space for maybe three at the back – just like the late 1920s. The British micro companies in this book, such as Bond, Reliant, Frisky and Scootacar, were exactly the opposite. They were small companies, and run by independent entrepreneurs, and all produced unconventional designs, unpopular with the big boys.

This 1948 proletarian model from Soviet-era Czechoslovakia surely never made it onto the road and survives only as a grainy photograph.

The British very small car has more in common with a craft-based sports marque such as AC or Morgan, than with the bland global products of Ford and General Motors, and some British microcar manufacturers moved between micros and sports models but not into volume. German microcars, in contrast, were often produced by large companies fallen on post-war hard times.

This advert gives the impression of international acclaim for the Ford Anglia – but no amount of colourful spin can disguise the fact that this is a dull and dated car design.

There were three main shapes for a British microcar. Some looked like austere and basic ordinary cars, while others had a traditional sporting appearance. And the bubble car had a shape unique to microcars.

Microcars have always lent themselves to humour. This image is taken from an advertisement for car batteries.

The microcar story starts in the post-war years, when motorcycles were common, and a motorcycle with sidecar was a popular option for a young family.

Scarce and expensive cars encouraged the following life stages: