Examining The myth of the British Motorcycle Industry Demise

It still keeps getting repeated, not only by those who claim to know about it because they were riding bikes at the time but also by journalists who are much younger and who just carry on repeating what they have always heard and read in other works, That is that the British Motorcycle industry was killed off by the Japanese manufacturers. In fact this is true but only in part as it didn't happen in this country but in America. Major motorcycle manufacturing in this country had already collapsed in all but name by the time that the Japanese factories got going with any substantial imports to the UK and by then those that remained were almost totally dependent on the large USA market for their survival.

Years ago the late Bob Currie, a well respected author and long time journalist/road test editor for Motor Cycle magazine who was involved with all of our manufacturers throughout his entire career pointed out numerous times that by the time that the Japanese manufacturers appeared on the scene with imports of any number the majority of our manufacturers had already closed down. He also debunked another myth, that they were undercutting our own manufacturers with cheap prices, by saying that Japanese motorcycles at first were more expensive than the home made products, something I have more or less confirmed by checking on the prices given in the adverts in the magazines of that period.

In fact the demise of the British manufacturers had started around 1960 and the fact that this was only just after the start of the first Honda imports of the 50cc stepthru Cub was just coincidental. In fact this country was just following what had already happened in Germany a couple of years before when the vast majority of their many manufacturers closed down when their market collapsed as their expected customers switched to the cheaper secondhand cars that were now becoming available on the market as those who could afford the new replacement cars now available sold off their old ones. The large NSU concern, which was by far their largest manufacturer and the World's largest motorcycle manufacturer in the mid fifties with a technically well respected range of models were left struggling on with just the Quickly moped range before giving bikes up completely around 1965 and switching entirely to cars. It's true that the Honda Cub made great progress with sales in Britain but the British Raleigh concern, who were really selling slightly altered French Mobylette mopeds were still selling plenty of their bikes and the reality was that the new stylish looking Honda Cub actually brought quite a few new riders into the ranks who otherwise wouldn't have even considered any form of motorised two wheeler because with all its works hidden away and with indicators and brake light as standard in no way did it look unsafe or threatening danger. In this way it mirrored the way the general public looked upon the post war motor scooter when it was first introduced. Although as a two stroke enthusiast it pains me to say it but the Cub with its four stroke engine also had the extra advantage for the non technically minded commuter that it didn’t need to have any oil added to its fuel when visiting garages and eventually Raleigh, still with their petroil lubricated two-stroke engines, also decided to give up in the face of a declining market and to concentrate on their main industry of pedal cycles instead in the late 1960s.

NSU Quickly, one of the moped and scooter group which boosted the registration numbers in 1959

The year 1959 showed the highest post war number of new motorcycle registrations in Britain. However, this disguised the real situation because the largest number of these were not actual motorcycles but mopeds for commuters and especially scooters which during the 1950s had enjoyed a real popularity with scooter clubs being formed throughout Europe by a postwar young generation keen on travel and socialising. But this popularity of scooters was fuelled not only by the desire for travel and socialising but also by the lack of cars which were at that time not affordable to the majority rather than for any real love of motorised two wheelers in their own right and once cars (mostly secondhand) became affordable to the younger element of them and once they began starting families then the scooter market declined rapidly. For much the same reason a lot of the market for the commuter type of motorcycle quickly started to decline with the smaller manufacturers starting to either close down altogether or being swallowed up by the larger organisations. Those larger organisations were now also becoming increasingly reliant on the American market in order to retain their profits and production which their UK and European markets could no longer sustain. The birth of the BMC (later British Leyland) Mini is usually the reason given for the start of this fall in motorcycle sales because of its relatively cheap price, but I do not really see this as such because cheaper cars than the Mini, such as the Ford 100E Popular and the Standard 8 for example, were already available and had been for some time and prior to 1959 the Ford Popular had been the even cheaper “sit up and beg” E93A version. Mostly it was to secondhand cars that the non enthusiast and the still enthusiastic but family persuaded motorcyclists were switching and personally I did not know any of my friends fathers who did switch to cars that bought a new one. The two motorcycle magazines of the period both had adverts from all the larger motorcycle dealers also advertising their ranges of secondhand cars and also new and secondhand threewheelers to appeal to those who didn’t have a car driving licence and offering to take customers motorcycles in part exchange.

By the time I started riding in 1964 most of the smaller manufacturers had already gone and those that remained such as Greeves and DOT were concentrating on competition models and mostly giving up their road bikes. The AMC empire was struggling towards its death a few years later, as was Velocette and they, along with BSA and Triumph were becoming increasingly reliant on the American market in order to maintain enough sales to survive. The American importers were only really interested in larger bikes (the larger the better) and competition bikes and to meet this demand the smaller road bikes that used to be sold in this country were slowly dropped as they were both less profitable and the market in the UK was shrinking rapidly. In this respect the fact that the Japanese manufacturers had their huge home market in the far east to sustain them and were therefore able to weather the large decline of sales in Europe meant they were in good shape to be able to fill those remaining sales in Europe and meet the recovery when it came.

Scooter sales in this country received a small boost with the advent of the mods and rockers era because at first parents who mistakenly saw them as safer than motorcycles for their precious offspring were willing to sign off on HP agreements on new scooters to keep them off motorcycles. However, once the seaside town fights at bank holidays between mods and rockers started up and was greatly exaggerated by the sensationalist press and television channels (who even staged fights to then report on in at least one attempt to carry things on long after it had all really fizzled out) that market soon disappeared. The whole mods and rockers era did probably did untold damage to the remaining UK motorcycle sales as in those days you had to be 21 years old to sign up for anything financial and parents desperate to keep their youngsters off bikes and scooters would bribe them to wait for another year by promising to give them a car and driving lessons as a reward. Most did not need a lot of persuading as the social possibilities of a car against two wheels for hormone fuelled youngsters was obvious. Those who were still enthusiastic about bikes and/or scooters but whose parents were dead against them were just forced to follow their parents wishes as until they were 21 they were effectively still under their guardianship. Fortunately for me my own parents were more enlightened, perhaps due to my uncle and aunt being keen (and non hooligan) motorcyclists. So I didn’t have to suffer those problems on my way to becoming a motorcyclist. In the late 1960s motorcycle and scooter dealers were closing in huge numbers as the number of riders fell rapidly and most of those really large dealers who used to advertise in the magazines either went altogether during this period or switched entirely to cars. At that time I hardly saw another bike or scooter during my daily commute to and from work and it was during this period really that the practice of riders acknowledging each other when they passed on the road really started (something I have always continued) as there were seemingly so few of us left.

BSA C15 250cc. Bikes of this “learner” category were no longer available from British manufacters when the revival came

The salvation for the trade in this country really came once the age of majority in this country changed from 21 to 18 years of age in 1970 as now 18 year olds were able to sign financial loan agreements on new motorcycles without parental consent and motorcycles, although not scooters at that stage, started to sell again although slowly at first. However by now our remaining manufacturers Triumph, BSA and Norton no longer made any bikes small enough for those with provisional licences. The last being the BSA Bantam, I think, which lasted just a little longer than the Triumph Tiger Cub and BSA’s own Starfire and ceased in about 1970. Anyone who wanted to start out riding a British bike had to do so with a secondhand and probably pre-thrashed one. The obvious alternative for any youngster who wanted to start on a new bike up to 250cc and who didn't mind signing for a finance agreement was a new Japanese bike. So in that respect it could well be argued that in fact the Japanese makers really saved motorcycling in this country as most of the new wave of young riders were not going to be content with something that had previously been wrecked by several previous owners and which needed constant attention to make good previous neglect. For myself, who had been brought up in an era of making do with what we could afford to buy and fixing what needed to be fixed it shocked me to see just what debt people younger than myself were willing to sign up to in order to get a new bike but times had changed with the lowering of the age of majority and I and those who felt like me were now out of step with the times.

If you wanted a new learner bike in the mid 1970s then Japanese was almost your only choice

By this time BSA, Triumph and Norton (Velocette had gone in 1971) were almost totally reliant for their trade on the American market, which has a very short period each year apparently when their customers tend to buy their bikes. Although their products were actually still selling well in Britain the attention to customers here started to suffer as the main emphasis was on that vital American market and as they struggled to meet that demand on time with their by now smaller production abilities both deliveries and product pre-delivery quality checks to eliminate any faults started to suffer. In the past customers here had been prepared to put up with considerable waits in order to get the bike they desired, probably a legacy from the post war era when most production went for export and you just had to wait long periods for any vehicle, but not in the USA. If they couldn't get a bike that they liked from one manufacturer immediately then they would get another model from a different manufacturer and although the UK market was miniscule when compared with the USA with their new purchasing power the same attitude now applied to the UK’s new young buyers. The Japanese manufacturers were producing in huge numbers and could supply immediately. The importance of missing that vital USA buying period was brought home when barely two years after achieving the Queens Award to Industry for Export BSA/Triumph missed the USA market buying period and went into receivership as a result. The struggles of what was left of the British motorcycle industry from then on has been well documented, not helped by Government forced amalgamations and the dodgy dealings on the stock exchange by undisclosed shady characters which saw almost five million Pounds of Government loans virtually disappear. However, by that time what was left of the industry no longer had the manufacturing capacity to compete in the American market for bulk sales in any case and UK and European sales alone could unfortunately no longer profitably sustain a manufacturer of any size even though at the time of their demise they could still sell every bike they could produce.

Colin Atkinson (2025)