BOWDEN BICYCLE
Designed during the Space Race era yet over-designed for most cyclists, the Bowden put tech where none was needed
REALISING THAT POST-WAR recovery for a bankrupted Britain depended on competitiveness in international markets, the Board of Trade, in December 1944, announced the formation of the Council of Industrial Design. The Council’s objective was to encourage greater sophistication in product design and manufacture, and, as mentioned in last month’s Icon, it announced an exhibition to be held in 1946 to showcase British goods.
Called ‘Britain Can Make It’, the exhibition displayed more than 6000 items but, despite its success with the public (more than 1.5 million people queued to see what a bright future lay ahead), severe rationing and a priority placed on exports led to it being dubbed by the press ‘Britain Can’t Have It’.
One extraordinary device, displayed in the Designs of the Future segment of the exhibition, fell into a category that could have been best described as ‘Britain Won’t Make It’: the Bowden Classic bicycle.
Benjamin ‘Ben’ Bowden was born in North Kensington, London, in 1906 and his early career as an industrial designer was spent with the Rootes Group, where he became the chief body designer of the Humber division.
After the war, Bowden, in partnership with John Allen, opened one of the first independent design consultancies in Britain, based in Leamington Spa. An early commission was an aerodynamic body for Donald Healey’s 100mph-plus Elliott saloon. He also penned all-enveloping sports bodywork for the prototype Zethrin Rennsport.
Bowden’s other project for 1946 could not have differed more greatly from the expensive Healey: a better bicycle for the proletariat. In the words of his patent application it was designed to ‘provide improvement of aesthetic and practical character’. Curiously, Bowden called it the Classic, which, as a description of his futuristic design, could not have been further from the reality.
The Classic’s aesthetics are questionable, being a bizarre mixture of science fiction futurism, American Streamline Moderne and the extravagant curves of Art Nouveau. Technically, however, the bike was decades ahead of its time. The aluminium monocoque frame was composed of two pressings that extended over and shrouded the rear wheel, also enclosing a shaft drive and the cables for the brakes, which were operated by twist grips
‘BOWDEN WORKED AS A CONSULTANT ON THE FORD THUNDERBIRD, YET HIS AMBITION TO BUILD A BETTER BICYCLE REMAINED UNDIMINISHED’
on the handlebars. Its most advanced feature was an energy recovery system based on a dynamo that harnessed electricity on downward slopes or while pedalling on the flat, then released it to assist progress up gradients.
Despite the interest shown by the public, Bowden failed to find a British manufacturer prepared to tool up and put the cycle into production. Initial interest from South Africa also led nowhere and, in the early 1950s, Bowden moved to Michigan in the USA. He worked as a consultant on both the early Corvette and the Ford Thunderbird, yet his ambition to build a better bicycle remained undiminished and unfulfilled. He redesigned the frame in glassfibre and in 1960 it finally went into production.
The new bike, with a nod to concurrent automotive styling and 1950s excess, featured integral twin head- and taillights, and a choice of five colours. Gone, however, was the shaft drive and electric motor. Given the new, more topical name of Spacelander – the Space Race was at its peak – it failed to catch the public’s imagination and was in production for only one year. The bike was expensive and the glassfibre frame apparently rather fragile, and only 544 were produced. But it seems Bowden was never one to give up, and he redesigned the frame, eliminating the front down tube and simplifying the mudguard arrangement. Yet there was still much more frame to the Bowden 300, as it was called, than a bike actually needed and only a handful were produced.
Bowden died in Florida in 1998 at the age of 91. Shortly before he died, he declared: ‘Of all the things I’ve done, I would like to be remembered for the bicycle.’
Needless to say, like many devices that failed in their day, original Bowden bicycles now command huge prices when they occasionally appear for sale.