pushbike manufacturer in way
back 1899 – the very end of the
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wheeler built in 1901. In those days
many manufacturers of lightweight
motor vehicles which were under
the ‘umbrella’ of motorcycles, made
tricycles and quads, just as some of
them still do today: Henry Ford’s
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tricycle, and it was by no means
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follow that route.
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motorcycles right through the
twentieth century, supplying
machines for dispatch riders in both
WW1 and WW2. The single-cylinder,
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introduced in 1932, the bike just
one of the factory’s machines used
by Allied forces during the Second
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two-stroke ‘Flying Flea’ was dropped
by parachute to provide hundreds
of eager, foot-weary troops with a
simple form of very basic transport.
This was followed just after the war
when the single-cylinder, rigid-frame
Model G (350cc) and Model J
(500cc) machines were introduced in
late 1946. They were very ordinary
motorcycles, it must be said – and
weren’t they all back then? - with
cast-iron cylinder head, low
compression ratio pistons, small
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bush’ big-end bearing and very staid
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stated purpose admirably by
providing cheap transport to a new
generation of commuting
motorcyclists.
That changed very dramatically in
1948 when the exciting new 350cc
Bullet sports model was announced
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an all-new alloy head, higher
compression ratio, more sporting
cams, larger carburettors and an
all-new swing-arm rear suspension;
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A team of four factory riders
competed in the infamous, gruelling
International Six Day Trial in that
year, where the small team amazed
everybody by winning a Gold Medal
without losing a single point.
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brought into Sydney in very small
numbers in 1949 by a shop in
Sydney which carried the ‘Bruce
Small’ name, the tiny showroom also
featuring the Czech Jawa two-strokes
and a raft of Malvern Star pushbikes.
Three or four Bullets – the 500cc
version appearing in 1953 – were
on display from time to time with
the very fetching OHV 500cc twin,
these ‘popular’ bikes always claimed
by eager owners almost overnight.
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out loud how much more popular
RE might be if a major importer
was to bring them into the country
in much larger numbers, for the RE
Bullet was certainly on par with any
of the other British motorcycles
which proliferated.
As an aside, Bruce Small lived in
Melbourne before selling out to
Bennet and Wood in 1958, who were
selling Speedwell cycles (and BSA
motorcycle, of course) and then
made his way to the Gold Coast,
where he subsequently became
its Lord Mayor, and where he was
said to have introduced the bikini-
clad ‘Meter Maids’ as part of his
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is also said that, to perpetuate his
memory, the Bruce Highway was
named after him: if this is true, it
could hardly have been called the
“Small Highway” could it?
But there seems to be no record
anywhere of Bruce Small’s name
being applied to that small store in
Sydney I remember so well, so it
may have been a franchise of some
type, the store’s proprietor possibly
importing the machines without
recourse to Small himself? Alas, we
may never know.
The Indian Government made a
strong point in favour of RE in 1955
when it ordered more than 800 350cc
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personnel, the lot dispatched from
Britain in crates, to be assembled in
India. Two years later, the English
company sold patterns, jigs, dies,blueprints and tools to a new
company which had been formed in
Madras, the single-cylinder machines
being fully manufactured in that
country during subsequent years.
5R\DO(QÀHOGZHQWRQWRPDNH
large-capacity, high-performance
OHV twin-cylinder motorcycle
for some time thereafter in
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‘Constellation’, which was the subject
of an in-depth road test in that
year where it achieved a top speed
of 118 MPH.
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to God in England, but the single-
cylinder bikes, with their relaxed,
‘sit-up-and-beg’ riding positions,
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if all but unknown everywhere
else on earth.
But now, into the twentieth-
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Bullet, in its several guises, has
been ‘discovered’, or perhaps re-
discovered, and is achieving an
amazing acceptance in just about
every nation on earth. Its basic
design harks back to 1948, remaining
instantly recognisable as somewhat
‘old fashioned’; which indeed it is.
But with modern manufacturing
techniques, newly-designed, all-alloy,
unit-construction engines, electronic
ignition, fuel injection featured
on some models and far better
technology, it is nowhere near as old
fashioned as it might seem, and is in
many ways as modern as tomorrow.
The last two years have seen an
amazing rise in the bike’s sales, for
HDFKRIWKRVH\HDUVUHFRUGHGDÀIW\
percent increase in sales over the
SUHYLRXV\HDU,Q5R\DO(QÀHOG
was said to have manufactured
RYHUPRWRUF\FOHVZLWKWKH
prediction that the company in
India will build one million machines
a year from 2020!
The irony is that the Indian
5R\DO(QÀHOGPRWRUF\FOHLVQRZ
being exported to the UK in huge
numbers, where new generations
of motorcyclists have discovered a
machine with a name which can trace
its British ancestry right back to the
tail-end of the nineteenth century. DCLASSIC MORRIS