No, BSA was always nothing if not diverse. And from then on it was just motorcycles? Motor bicycles were added in 1910 when the BSA 3½ hp was exhibited at Olympia. BSA’s gun machinery proved remarkably adaptable to making bicycle parts, the company wanted to diversify so, in 1880, it produced its first bicycle. Like many other historic manufacturers – via bicycles. So how did it go from guns to motorbikes?

During the course of WWII, BSA made nearly 0.5million Brownings plus 1.25m Lee-Enfield rifles and 400,000 Sten guns. Yes, all the Battle of Britain Spitfires and Hurricanes used Browning. Didn’t BSA have something to do with the Spitfire? It was founded in 1861 by 14 members of the Birmingham Small Arms Trade Association specifically to produce weapons on an industrial scale – it was hugely successful, too. It started out as a gun company and, to some degree, remains so today – you might have had a BSA air rifle as a kid. Unlike Triumph and Norton, which have both recently been revived after floundering in the 1970s, BSA remains ‘off the radar’, which, in these days of rebirth for countless classic British marques, is something of a mystery – but more of that later. At its peak it was the largest motorcycle firm in the world. BSA, or the Birmingham Small Arms company Ltd, is the ‘other’ historic British bike brand (along with Triumph and Norton) most famous for machines like the Bantam, Gold Star and Rocket III.

From guns and Spitfires to the world’s biggest bike firm to… nowhere Fact fileīSA (Birmingham Small Arms company limited)Ĭlaim to fame: Was once the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer BSA.

Bsa bicycles history