page_title: Birmingham Small Arms Company
section_title: Aviation
hierarchical_section_title: Birmingham Small Arms Company / History of the BSA industrial group / New ventures / Aviation
caption_attribution_description: 1922 to 1926 BSA TB210HP Roadster V Twin Rear-Wheel-Drive The 1914-18 war stopped production of BSA cars and it was not until 1921 that production of cars resumed. This was no badge-engineered Daimler but a genuine attempt to move into the light car market with the RWD V twin. This car used an engine based on the Hotchkiss designed 900 V twin introduced in early 1921. The car was certainly designed at Small Heath and may well have been produced in one of BSA's Birmingham factories, but this is by no means certain. The car was eventually produced with V twin, 4 cylinder one 6 cylinder engine with the latter being a Knight sleeve valve engine. The cars were produced between 1922 and 1926. BSA constructed a large new factory on the Coventry Road, Birmingham which was known as the light car works to handle production of these vehicles. Production of the RWD cars never really came to anything with estimates of the numbers produced for all models quoted at around 1000 over the 4 years.
context_page_description: The Birmingham Small Arms Company Limited was a major British industrial combine, a group of businesses manufacturing military and sporting firearms; bicycles; motorcycles; cars; buses and bodies; steel; iron castings; hand, power, and machine tools; coal cleaning and handling plants; sintered metals; and hard chrome process.
  After the Second World War, BSA did not manage its business well, and a government-organised rescue operation in 1973 led to a takeover of such operations as it still owned. Those few that survived this process disappeared into the ownership of other businesses.
context_section_description: During the war Daimler had built enormous numbers of aero engines and aircraft and by the end was building 80 Airco de Havilland bombers a month. In February 1920 BSA amalgamated with what was the world's largest aircraft manufacturer, Aircraft Manufacturing Company (Airco), Airco's main plant at Hendon had employed between 7,000 and 8,000 people. The Airco group of companies had turned out a new aircraft every 45 minutes.
  Within days BSA discovered Airco was in a far more serious financial state than  George Holt Thomas had revealed. Holt Thomas was immediately dropped from his new seat on the BSA board and all BSA's new acquisitions were placed in the hands of a liquidator. Some of the businesses were allowed to continue for some years, Aircraft Transport and Travel's assets being eventually rolled into Daimler Air Hire to make Daimler Airway Limited. BSA failed to pay a dividend for the following four years while it tried to recover from its losses.  Some relief was achieved when in March 1924 Daimler Airway and its management became the major constituent of Imperial Airways.
  As well as the Daimler car range, BSA Cycles Ltd re-entered the car market under the BSA name in 1921 with a V-twin engined light car followed by four-cylinder models up to 1926, when the name was temporarily dropped. In 1929 a new range of 3- and 4-wheel cars appeared and production of these continued until 1936.
  By the end of 1924 difficult economic conditions left the bulk of BSA profits coming from cars and cycles. There were no sales of arms for military purposes in spite of large new facilities built at Government's request. The shares in Pennsylvania's Jessop Steel Co were disposed of without loss. During 1928 there was a drastic reorganisation of the business of some BSA subsidiaries.
  By 1930 the BSA Group's primary activities were BSA cycles and Daimler vehicles.
  Car production under the BSA name ceased in the 1930s. BSA remained the largest manufacturer of motorcycles but the market was less than half the size of the late 1920s and production was unprofitable yet the value of BSA's motor cars and cycles was now more than half group turnover.
caption: BSA 10 hp two-seater
   air-cooled V Twin engine
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