History
The Advance Motor Manufacturing Company Ltd was incorporated on 31 May 1905 with registered offices at Louise Road, Northampton by Douglas Herbert Gainsford and Frederick Smart, with an original share capital of £10,000. Gainsford and Smart previously ran a bicycle shop in Northampton that also hired out motorcycles, and from 1903 when Joseph Power joined them they began designing and manufacturing engines and motorcycles. The reliability of Advance engines was such that it was not long before they were in demand from other motorcycle manufacturers and they came to be exported all over the world. [2]
Moving to a larger factory on the corner of Kingsthorpe Road and Balmoral Road in 1912, Advance ended vehicle production to concentrate on reconditioning engines and making components, including the 'Gradua' multi-speed mechanism for Zenith Motorcycles and engines for Duzmo Motorcycles, [3] producing everything in-house except for cylinder castings. As well as producing their own products and supplying stationary engines for driving agricultural machinery, Advance were agents for Kerry Cars and dealers for Brown and Barlow carburettors. [1]
Advance were also pioneers and innovators, with a number of patents for components such as the 'Advance Adjustable Pulley' (the basis of the Gradua multi-speed mechanism) that aided the ascent of steep hills, [2] and their adjustable belt fastener. They had a sister company that was incorporated in 1916, Standard Valves Ltd, which manufactured replacement valves for the motor trade. [1]
By 1936 Advance had become contractors to the War Office, Admiralty and the Air Ministry, providing specialist engineering services including cylinder re-grinding and repairs, case hardening and grinding. Sometime between 1949 and 1953 Advance was sold to Sheepbridge Engineering of Chesterfield and renamed Advance Motor Supplies Ltd, and in 1979 they were taken over by GKN Plc who changed the name to GKN Replacement Services Ltd in 1982. The name was changed again by 1984 to GKN Autoparts Distribution Ltd, then in January 1990 it became Partco Ltd and finally Partco AutoParts Ltd in October 1995. [2] As of October 2011, the company was still on the UK register of companies, but is shown as being dormant. [4]
Advance V4 aero engine
The Advance V4 aero engine was made from two V-twin engines bolted together back-to-back. One of the engines would have been running backwards and it is not known how the crankshafts were joined. The carburettor was a Brown & Barlow type 65DU or GU as used by cars of the time and fed a one-into-two-into-four manifold. With an output of 20 brake horsepower (15 kW) and a capacity of 2290 cc, the flywheel was 9.25 inches (23.5 cm) in diameter and weighed 36 pounds (16 kg). The engine revved to 1,800 rpm. [9]
Grose Monoplane
The Grose Monoplane was built in Oakington in 1909 by Alfred Grose and Neville Feary, to attempt to win the Daily Mail prize of £1,000 for the first British aircraft to fly a circular mile with a British pilot. The Advance V4 aero engine was chosen to provide the power and in its first trial the monoplane was tethered to a tree but it never flew. It was eventually dismantled and taken to de Havilland at Hatfield. [9]
Dixon Nipper
Another aircraft to use the Advance V4 aero engine was the 'Dixon Nipper No.1', designed and built by H.S. Dixon in 1911 with a wingspan of 26 feet (7.9 m). A single-seat canard pusher monoplane, the Nipper flew but crashed and was completely wrecked in an accident at Acton. The contribution of the Nipper to the development of flight was recognised by Hollywood, however, as a non-flying replica was built for comedian Tony Hancock's plane in the 1960s comedy film Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines , called the Little Tiddler. [9]
Hammond Monoplane
The Hammond Monoplane used a 30 horsepower (22 kW) water-cooled Advance V4 engine and was built at Brooklands in the summer of 1913. A single-seat monoplane, it was designed and built by experienced pioneering aviator Edward Victor Hammond who had built and flown a biplane in 1910 and a triplane in 1911 at Brooklands. The Advance engine was modified by Hammond and the fuselage consisted of a pair of parallel steel tubes. [9]
Handley Page Bluebird
The first powered Handley Page aircraft, the Type A Bluebird of 1910, used an Advance V-four engine. [3] A single-seat monoplane, the Bluebird was made of wood covered with fabric, and crash landed on its maiden flight on 26 May 1910. Changes were made to improve control and a more powerful Alvaston flat-twin engine of 25 horsepower (19 kW) replaced the Advance. When the Bluebird was exhibited at Olympia in April 1911 it had progressed to a 35 horsepower (26 kW) Green engine, which in turn was replaced by an Isaacson radial engine and first flew 15 July 1911, once again crash landing, so it may have been the airframe design rather than the Advance engine that was the cause of the problem. [10]
The Rolls-Royce Merlin is a British liquid-cooled V-12 piston aero engine of 27-litres capacity. Rolls-Royce designed the engine and first ran it in 1933 as a private venture. Initially known as the PV-12, it was later called Merlin following the company convention of naming its four-stroke piston aero engines after birds of prey.
The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is called a "star engine" in some other languages.
The Bristol Perseus was a British nine-cylinder, single-row, air-cooled radial aircraft engine produced by the Bristol Engine Company starting in 1932. It was the first production sleeve valve aero engine.
A flat-twin engine is a two-cylinder internal combustion engine with the cylinders on opposite sides of the crankshaft. The most common type of flat-twin engine is the boxer-twin engine, where both pistons move inwards and outwards at the same time.
Clément-Bayard, Bayard-Clément, was a French manufacturer of automobiles, aeroplanes and airships founded in 1903 by entrepreneur Gustave Adolphe Clément. Clément obtained consent from the Conseil d'Etat to change his name to that of his business in 1909. The extra name celebrated the Chevalier Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard who saved the town of Mézières in 1521. A statue of the Chevalier stood in front of Clément's Mézières factory, and the image was incorporated into the company logo.
Coventry Victor was a British motorcycle and car manufacturer. Originally Morton & Weaver, a proprietary engine manufacturer in Hillfields, Coventry, founded in 1904, the company changed its name to Coventry Victor Motors in 1911. The company closed in 1971.
The Nakajima Homare was an air-cooled twin-row 18 cylinder radial Japanese aircraft engine manufactured during World War II. Producing almost 2,000 horsepower, it was used widely by both the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy. Given the Navy service designation NK9, the "Homare" was also given the company designation NBA, Army experimental designation Ha-45 (ハ45) or, Army long designation Nakajima Army Type 4 1,900 hp Air-Cooled Radial and, (coincidentally) unified designation code of Ha-45.
Singer Motors Limited was a British motor vehicle manufacturing business, originally a bicycle manufacturer founded as Singer & Co by George Singer, in 1874 in Coventry, England. Singer & Co's bicycle manufacture continued. From 1901 George Singer's Singer Motor Co made cars and commercial vehicles.
The Klimov M-105 was a V12 liquid-cooled piston aircraft engine used by Soviet aircraft during World War II.
Rex, Rex Motorcycles, Rex-Acme, was a car and motorcycle company which began in Birmingham, England in 1900. Rex soon merged with a Coventry maker of bicycles and cars named Allard and then later in 1922 the company merged with Coventry's 'Acme' motorcycle company forming 'Rex Acme'. The company existed until 1933, and, in its heyday, was considered one of the greatest names in the British motorcycle industry.
The Green Engine Co was a British engine company founded by Gustavus Green in Bexhill to sell engines of his design. He flourished especially as a designer of aeroplane engines during the first two decades of the 20th century. The engines were actually manufactured by the Aster Engineering Company.
Victoria was a bicycle manufacturer in Nürnberg, Germany that made motorcycles from about 1901 until 1966. It should not be confused with a lesser-known, unrelated Victoria Motorcycle Company in Glasgow, Scotland that made motorcycles between 1902 and 1928.
Humber Limited was a pioneering British motorcycle manufacturer. Humber produced the first practical motorcycle made in Britain by fitting one of their Humber bicycles with an E. J. Pennington two-horsepower motor in 1896.
The Bat Motor Manufacturing Co. Ltd was a British motorcycle manufacturer that operated between 1902 and 1926. Significant innovations developed by the company included one of the first motorcycle suspension systems, with a leading link front fork and a subframe suspended on springs from the main frame.
Quadrant was one of the earliest British motorcycle manufacturers, established in Birmingham in 1901. Famous for their big singles, Quadrant pioneered many innovations that proved important for motorcycle development but struggled after the First World War and the company was wound up in 1928.
The ABC Gnat was a 45 hp (34 kW) two-cylinder aero engine designed by British engineer Granville Bradshaw for use in light aircraft. The Gnat was built by ABC Motors, first running in 1916, production ceased in December 1918. 17 engines were built from an original order of 18.
The Viale 35 hp was a five-cylinder, air-cooled, radial engine for aircraft use designed and built in France by the Italian engine designer Spirito Mario Viale, that was first run around 1910. It developed 35 horsepower (26 kW). Three- and seven-cylinder variants of the same engine were built, although little is known about them.
British Salmson aero-engines refers to a series of small French designed, air-cooled radial aero engine that were produced by British Salmson Aero Engines Ltd, under license from Société des Moteurs Salmson, in Great Britain during the late 1920s and 1930s.
The Green D.4 was a four-cylinder watercooled inline piston engine produced by the Green Engine Co in the UK in 1909. It produced about 60 hp (45 kW) and played an important role in the development of British aviation before World War I.
Arthur William Wall was an engineer in the field of motorised transport and inventor of the self-powered wheel in England in the early 20th century. He is best known for his creation of the self-powered wheel, the Wall Autowheel, which could be used to power a bicycle, but he was also the man behind Roc motorcycles and a tricar and four-wheel cyclecar. His main company was A.W. Wall Ltd, but he created several other companies to compartmentalise his different activities, such as the Roc Gear Co, who supplied epicyclic gears to a significant number of manufacturers before WW1.
