Bikes B S A

Birmingham Small Arms Company is also known as BSA, throughout the years, BSA has produced, firearms, military equipment and motorcycles. Today BSA only produces air guns.

BSA was founded in 1861 by 14 gunsmiths in Birmingham, England. By 1880 BSA had started the production of their first bicycles but it was not until 1903 that BSA produced their first motorcycle.

BSA produced a number of motorcycles well into the 1900's and even purchased the British Daimler Company so that it could use their engines.

By World War Two BSA had 67 factories throughout England and also produced 126,000 motorcycles especially for use by the military as well as a large number of bicycles.

In 1951 BSA became the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world after purchasing Triumph, Ariel, New Hudson and Sunbeam Motorcycles. Most of which belonged to the Sanger Corporation and in 1960 BSA sold British Daimler to Jaguar.

Although BSA sold their bicycle line in 1957 to Raleigh, the BSA bicycle is still produced today in India under the name TI Cycles.

The BSA name on motorcycles was lost due to bad monetary decisions and a 10 million dollar British Government loan. The BSA line was thwarted into the Norton-Villiers Deal, but the name badge was not used. Norton-Villiers did however continue to produce 4 BSA motorcycles until 1973, when those three lines were dropped completely.

Although management attempted to revive the BSA name at Norton-Villiers, a protest by the factory workers prevented any such revival.

This was not the last time the BSA Motorcycle was to be made. In the 1990's, under the BSA Marquee, the Bushman was revived as a Rotax powered military motorcycle and later throughout the 1990's the Bushman could be seen on Australian sheep farms due to its high ground clearance.

BSA Motorcycles had been produced throughout the years with attached side cars and had also experienced a bit of success in both motocross and track racing circuits throughout the world.