1930s Watsonian Pedal Car

In the early years of motorcycling, the sidecar outfit was a practical cheaper alternative to the car. The 1914 Gamages catalogue (below) announced bicycle sidecars – with either a wicker body to carry a child or a basket for transporting goods – as ‘Something Quite New.’ This era was Gamages heyday and they would have been quick to introduce new innovations in cycling, so I assume that this was when cycle sidecars first came onto the market.

1930s Watsonian Pedal Car

Aluminium body

LENGTH: 48″

HEIGHT 24″

WIDTH: 17″

Wheels 11″ with solid tyres

This unusual pedal car uses an aluminium cycle sidecar body made by the ‘Watsonian Sidecar Co’. The interior is similar to that of the sidecar. The body is not actually a sidecar body repurposed – if you look at the profiles of each (above and below) you can see that it’s a different shape.

I’ve never seen another example. I’m sure it was manufactured by Watsonian as it has been fabricated to a high professional standard, certainly good enough to have been sold in a department store. Its wire wheels have solid tyres, and are similar to pedal cars of the late 1920s/ early 1930s.

I usually display it next next to this original unrestored Watsonian cycle sidecar.

WATSONIAN SIDECARS

The original business was established in 1912 by Thomas Fredrick Watson as the ‘Patent Collapsible Sidecar Company Ltd’, after he built a folding sidecar that allowed him to get his motorcycle and sidecar combination through a narrow entrance to the yard at his house. Early sidecars were built with wicker bodies, which were then replaced by ash frames with plywood or steel panels. During World War 1, the company built sidecars for use as motorcycle ambulances. In 1922, they moved to Hockley in Birmingham. In 1930, the company name was changed to the ‘Watsonian Sidecar Company Ltd.’ In the same year the factory was destroyed by fire and in 1931 the company moved to new premises in Greet.