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This is the official BSA Motorcycles website. We've been enhancing riding experiences since 1903 - now BSA is back and better than ever. Find out about the latest BSA motorcycles, news and events here.
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Standing for Birmingham Small Arms Company Ltd, BSA was...
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- History
- BSA. That Rings A Bell. What’s It Famous for?
- But Not Any More, Obviously…
- So What’s The ‘Arms’ bit?
- Didn’T BSA Have Something to Do with The Spitfire?
- So How Did It Go from Guns to motorbikes?
- And from Then on It Was Just Motorcycles?
- So How Did It Become No1?
- Surely It Had Better Bikes Than The Bantam though?
- So What Went Wrong?
- Then What Happened?
So it should. BSA, or the Birmingham Small Arms company Ltd, is the ‘other’ historic British bike brand (along with Triumph and Norton) most famous for machines like the Bantam, Gold Star and Rocket III. At its peak it was the largest motorcycle firm in the world.
No. Unlike Triumph and Norton, which have both recently been revived after floundering in the 1970s, BSA remains ‘off the radar’, which, in these days of rebirth for countless classic British marques, is something of a mystery – but more of that later.
It started out as a gun company and, to some degree, remains so today – you might have had a BSA air rifle as a kid. It was founded in 1861 by 14 members of the Birmingham Small Arms Trade Association specifically to produce weapons on an industrial scale – it was hugely successful, too.
Yes, all the Battle of Britain Spitfires and Hurricanes used Browning .303 machine guns made by BSA. During the course of WWII, BSA made nearly 0.5million Brownings plus 1.25m Lee-Enfield rifles and 400,000 Sten guns. Military rifle production ended in 1961.
Like many other historic manufacturers – via bicycles. BSA’s gun machinery proved remarkably adaptable to making bicycle parts, the company wanted to diversify so, in 1880, it produced its first bicycle. Motor bicycles were added in 1910 when the BSA 3½ hp was exhibited at Olympia. It sold out for the next three years.
No, BSA was always nothing if not diverse. Apart from guns, bicycles and motorbikes, it also produced buses, cars (owning Daimler until 1960 when it was sold to Jaguar) even taxi bodies, via its Carbodies business.
Through growth and acquisition. BSA bought Sunbeam in 1943 then Ariel in 1944. After the war it returned its munitions factories to bike production and launched the hugely successful Bantam in 1948 (based on a German DKW design taken in war reparations). When it took over Triumph in 1951 the combined volume made BSA the world’s largest motorcycle p...
Don’t knock it: the lightweight two-stroke was many people’s introduction to motorcycles with more than 250,000 built. But no, it wasn’t the sexiest. Models like the Gold Star single, A10 Rocket Gold Star twin and Rocket III triple laid best claim to that.
As with the rest of the UK industry, how long have you got? Poor management, complacency, a lack of new models and more led to decline (by 1959 Honda had overtaken them). By the early ’70s the whole UK industry was in crisis.
In 1972, a government rescue plan saw BSA’s motorcycle businesses merged with Norton-Villiers to create Norton-Villiers-Triumph. It didn’t work. Their last BSA-badged bike was produced in 1973 with NVT liquidated in 1978 (Triumph by then had already been sold off to a workers cooperative).
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The Birmingham Small Arms Company Limited (BSA) was a major British industrial combine, a group of businesses manufacturing military and sporting firearms; bicycles; motorcycles; cars; buses and bodies; steel; iron castings; hand, power, and machine tools; coal cleaning and handling plants; sintered metals; and hard chrome process.
Dec 2, 2021 · The return of a legend – in the form of a modern classic motorcycle. Standing for Birmingham Small Arms Company Ltd, BSA was founded in 1861, for the production of firearms. The brand’s motorcycle division was set up in 1903, and the first motorcycle was introduced in 1910.
BSA motorcycles were made by the Birmingham Small Arms Company Limited (BSA), which was a major British industrial combine, a group of businesses manufacturing military and sporting firearms; bicycles; motorcycles; cars; buses and bodies; steel; iron castings; hand, power, and machine tools; coal cleaning and handling plants; sintered metals ...
Apr 12, 2024 · Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA) started in 1861, originally produced guns and bicycles before manufacturing its first bike with an engine in 1905 and its first official motorcycle in 1910. With motorcycles like the Gold Star and Rocket Three, the companies’ bikes were popular among the café racers of 50’s and 60’s.
