There are locations synonymous with the automobile trade’s wealthy historical past which might be celebrated for his or her automotive hyperlinks: assume Detroit, Maranello, Wolfsburg and Turin or, within the UK, Longbridge, Dagenham, Crewe and Goodwood. The seaside city of Clevedon in Somerset is emphatically not a kind of locations.
Not less than that’s what I assumed, having grown up in Clevedon. This place close to Bristol has a wealthy historical past, however largely stemming from its reputation as a Victorian seaside resort. It has an award-winning pier, which has stood proudly since 1869 (other than a 29-year interval after it collapsed throughout a stress check in 1970…). Clevedon was additionally the place penicillin was first mass-produced.
However I had no sense ‘the gem of sunny Somerset’ was house to any motoring historical past. Besides it was. And, after all, to seek out it, all I needed to do was look in The Autocar. Lengthy-time readers may bear in mind it from our 2 September 1899 challenge…
It seems the city was house to Clevedon Motor Automobiles, which, again in 1897, produced arguably the primary all-British-designed and constructed automobile. At a web site within the city centre, which I’ve handed for years. And I had no concept.
Fortunately, William Fairney is extra clued up on motoring historical past than I’m and has even written a e-book on it: Richard Stephens and the Clevedon Motor Automobiles. You’ll be able to nonetheless purchase it in digital type.
Richard Stephens, Clevedon’s personal Henry Ford, was born in Cwmbran in 1856. He started working in mines, however his wonderful mechanical abilities led him into engineering. Whereas within the US working for the Cleveland Iron Cliffs Firm, Stephens collaborated with Thomas Edison. He additionally visited Lansing, Michigan, to fulfill Ransom Eli Olds, inventor of a brand new steam-driven car and founding father of the Olds Motor Firm.
Stephens wound up in Clevedon in 1888 when pals really helpful he be employed by the city as a steamroller driver and engineer. The warfare on potholes had began early in Clevedon: the native council purchased a steamroller in 1882.
Stephens was fascinated by each bicycles and early motor automobile design and so arrange The Clevedon Cycle Depot and Refreshment Rooms (his spouse Mary equipped the teas) alongside his steamrolling day job, largely to advance his car-making desires. He was additionally engaged on a automobile and submitted a raft of patent functions (together with a profitable one for a footpath snowplough).
He quickly stop the steamrolling job to concentrate on his enterprise and, with backing from native baronet Sir Edmund Elton, based Stephens Engineering and Motor Automotive Works in 1895 within the Triangle, Clevedon’s city centre, to construct a automobile.
Stephens’ first automobile was a four-seater that includes independently sprung entrance suspension – a primary for a British automobile – and bar steering. Its twin-cylinder 2000cc rear-mounted engine was designed and constructed by Stephens and bore a detailed resemblance to these utilized by Olds in his early automobiles. It revved to 8000rpm, with two ahead gears (reverse was ‘passenger-assisted’: you needed to push it, principally…).
