BSA 10hp Special Saloon DeLuxe

Click Here for Full Screen Image - Click Here to Download Image

In its time, the Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA) manufactured all manner of items from bicycles to buses and firearms to machine tools; not to mention motorcycles and motorcars.

The first examples of the latter were rear-wheel drive machines, but from 1929 the company, now merged with Daimler, turned its attention to front-wheel drive three-wheelers. Though commonplace now, powering the front wheels was relatively novel at the time, and BSA combined the configuration with such niceties as a reverse gear, electric start and full weather protection.

Having foreseen the growing demand for small, lightweight cars, BSA added a wheel to its trike to create the four-wheeled FW32, thereby beginning a run of fun, affordable four-wheelers. A direct development was the BSA 10 of 1934 which was based on the Lanchester 10 chassis and running gear with a 4-door 4-seater body by Pressed Steel. It could also be ordered with a coachbuilt body by the likes of Mulliner or Peerless.

It was powered by a water-cooled 1,185cc straight-four, sidevalve engine that drove through a fluid flywheel to a Wilson four-speed pre-selector gearbox, giving a top speed of 58mph on level ground. The standard 10hp saloon cost £235 at launch with coachbuilt models costing about £20 more.

First registered in January 1934, this Pressed Steel-bodied Special Saloon DeLuxe comes with a most impressive history file that makes fascinating reading. The first known owner was a Mr FV Dempster of Enfield who bought it from Stratstone Ltd of Tottenham Court Road in response to an ad he saw in the 15th March 1935 issue of The Autocar where it was described as being “in new condition having been used few months only. £165.”

Dempster kept the car until at least 1952, keeping fastidious notes (in tiny handwriting) detailing every penny he spent on the car plus dozens of letters and invoices relating to its upkeep, all bound into a notebook in the file (the book also containing some of his – rather poor – attempts at creative writing!). There is also a letter from the car’s first owner (signature illegible but sent from The Maitland Bridge Club in West Hampstead) in response to a letter Dempster had sent him asking if he knew what might be causing “an unusual noise in the engine”; to which the answer was ‘no, take it up with Stratstone’ – and which turned out to be piston slap.

The car then appears to have had about four further owners (all detailed in old log books) before it was acquired by Ian and Bruce Richardson of Coventry in April 1989. They promptly set about a body-off restoration (including shot-blasting the chassis and rebuilding the engine with new pistons etc) which was to take over a year to complete and is fully detailed in two more notebooks in the history file.

In 1995 the car was bought by a Mr Ivan Roberts of Leicester who seems to have kept it until around 2004 at which point the car appeared on eBay, being offered for sale on behalf of the owner (who had apparently emigrated to America) by Rugby Classic Motor Garages. The listing stated that the car had been in storage for around a dozen years but had just been recommissioned for sale by Rugby Classics and that “the engine sounds lovely and ticks over smoothly” but “will want gently running in” after its long lay-up.

The vendor, a Director of the modern day incarnation of BSA, then bought the car as a promotional vehicle for the firm and has looked after it ever since, although it has barely been used in his ownership with just the odd run on private land to keep everything turning over smoothly.

Being offered here as a straightforward recommissioning project, it comes with the aforementioned history file, an original handbook on ‘The Daimler Fluid Flywheel Self-Changing Transmission’, an original BSA lubrication chart, photos of the car being displayed on the Daimler & Lanchester Owners’ Club stand at the NEC, copies of many contemporary road tests of the model plus a wealth of other material. A large quantity of useful spares are also included, most of whch are at Brightwells although some may need to be collected from the vendor’s home in Sutton Coldfield if desired.

Altogether a most appealing package of machinery and literature that will take quite some time for the new owner to become fully acquainted with!

AMENDMENT: Yet another batch of documents have now come to light detailing the care and maintenance of this car throughout the 1950s. These will be forwarded to the winning bidder after the sale.