The Sunbeam Villiers Connection
In 1898 John Marston of Sunbeamland, maker of cycles, and later, motorcycles, established a new company next door to make cycle fittings and later, cycle freewheels.
As part of the premises faced Villiers Street in Wolverhampton, England (named after local MP Charles Pelham Villiers), John Marston named the new company Villiers Cycle Components, and it soon became a successful company in its own right.
Villiers had the financial clout and engineering expertise to develop and manufacture their own engines and by around 1910 were selling four stroke engines, however in 1913 at the Olympia show they displayed the first in their long line of two stroke engines, the MK1, a 269cc single cylinder motorcycle unit."
May 6th 1916 saw John Marston retire... he died in 1918 aged 82 and in 1918 the company became the property of Nobel Industries which in 1928 the property the chemical company ICI, who continued building motorcycles until 1937.
The brand name of Sunbeam Motorcycles then became the property of AMC who designed a completely new new range of Sunbeam motorcycles, keeping the quality and engineering standards for which Sunbeam were renowned. The War stopped Sunbeam production as AMC became a producer of military WD machines.
'John Marston Ltd' was wound up in 1943, to become 'Marston Excelsior' in amalgamation with 'Excelsior Motor Radiator Co. of Leeds' later becoming 'I.M.I Marston Ltd' and eventually 'Marston Palmer' who still exist to this day.
In 1943 the Sunbeam trademarks were acquired by the mighty BSA group who produced low quality 'war-grade' Sunbeams until the introduction of the new Sunbeam S7 in 1946 dubbed the 'Gentlemen's Tourer'.
S' Series Sunbeams were produced from 1946 until 1956 when all Sunbeam motorcycle production Stopped. BSA did however use the Sunbeam name on a couple of scooters in 1959... a sad end to an historic heritage.
During all this time the Sunbeam bicycles continued production and the Sunbeam Cycle rights were sold to Raleigh in 1956/7 who now also own the rights to BSA Cycles.
The S' Series Sunbeams were the only shaft drive Sunbeam motorcycles and were sold as the S7, the S7 de-luxe and the S8. Sunbeam's were not produced at BSA's mighty Small Heath factory but at BSA Redditch where they were also designed.
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