BSA's front-drive trailblazer

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Now that the Mini has entered its 60th year, the motoring press is awash with praise for how it innovated front-wheel drive in mass-production. Perhaps the Mini was responsible for front-wheel drive becoming the norm, but it’s worth remembering the real innovator of mass-produced British front-wheel drive, the BSA three-wheeler, is now celebrating its 90th anniversary.

Even in 1929, of course, fwd was not a new idea and BSA’s Frederick Hulse had probably been thinking about it since former colleague George Iden built a fwd, vee-twin motor-cab in 1904. Hulse joined BSA in 1910, and two years later an amateur engineer submitted his designs for a fwd cyclecar, which just might have struck a chord with Hulse.

Of course, the Austin Seven would eventually render cyclecars obsolete, but one small gap in the market remained between motor car and motorcycle – the three-wheeler. Cheaper and more accessible than a car but safer and more convenient than a motorcycle, no large manufacturer besides Morgan was building them in Britain at that time.

Having gained experience of car manufacture with a 10hp light car in the early 1920s, powered by a 1080cc Hotchkiss vee-twin, and having a friendly relationship with Alvis designer W M Dunn, who co-designed the Red Triangle’s famous fwd racing car of 1925, BSA had all the ingredients for a pioneering take on mass motoring.

Graham Skillen tells the story of BSA’s forward-thinking in the June issue of The Automobile, on sale now.

Photographs by Stefan Marjoram.

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