1901 Sunbeam-Mabley
Mr Mabberley Smith was an architect given to designing large houses in the timbered ‘Tudorbethan’ idiom, and who fancied himself as a car designer. His first-and hopefully only-design to reach production was the Sunbeam-Mabley, built between 1901 and 1904 by the Sunbeam cycle company. Powered by a 2 3/4 hp De Dion engine, which drove the centre pair of wheels, the Sunbeam-Mabley was steered by the single wheels fore-and-aft (which were out of line). Altogether, it scuttled along the road like a drunken Victorian sociable settee, and would probably have been better employed as an item of furuiture in one of Mr Mabberley Smith’s houses.
1902 Berna
Joseph Wyss of Berne. Switzerland. built his first Berna cars in 1902. This model was on similar lines to the contemporary De Dion-Bouton. It had a 785cc single-cylinder engine mounted at the rear and three-seater coachwork with a ‘sideways’ front seat. It was no mean achievement to go into production with a motor vehicle in Switzerland, a country in which cars were banned from some cantons and drastically restricted by law in others.
1903 Thornycroft
John I. Thornycroft was a steamlaunch builder on the River Thames who had built an experimental steam carriage in the mid nineteenth century and who later pioneered the steam-powered commercial vehicle. His first venture into petrol vehicles came in 1903 with a range of cars which included this 20hp. fourcylinder model of 3628cc, which was offered with the advanced feature of a belt-driven dynamo to charge the ignition batteries.
1903 Mércèdes 60
‘See the Mercedes, shapeless, unpaintable’ warbled the onelegged Edwardian poet W.E. Henley. However, the Mércèdes car was one of the handsomest vehicles of its day, and one of the fastest. In November 1902, Mercedes introduced their new 60 hp model, with a 9 3/4 litre, four-cylinder, hi-block engine. In the following year, a stripped ’60’ cost over £2000, but offered 70 mph-plus performance at a time when the British speed limit was only 12mph.
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