THIS WEEK IN HISTORY: 1914
Fred Deeley opened a small shop on Granville Street to sell bicycles and motorcycles, and Vancouver was never as quiet again
Trev Deeley Motorcycles started selling Harley- Davidsons way back in 1917. In 2012, the company had a big celebration marking its 95th year in business, and three years from now, they plan on celebrating their 100th anniversary. But the company actually turned 100 this week. Trev’s grandfather, Fred, opened his first Vancouver shop in January 1914. But it wasn’t a motorcycle store — Fred Deeley started off selling bicycles. Deeley had been a competitive cyclist in his native Bromsgrove, England, just outside of Birmingham. In 1902, he started a bicycle shop, then started selling BSA motorcycles and Austin cars, which were both manufactured nearby. After he developed an ulcer, Fred’s doctor recommended he take a vacation for his health. A friend had recently returned from British Columbia, and Deeley travelled here in 1912, when Vancouver was in the midst of a giant boom. He returned to England, sold his business and moved to Vancouver in 1913. After a brief stint as a clerk in the Inland Revenue Office, Deeley opened Fred Deeley Bicycles in a tiny 12- foot- wide store at 1075 Granville. It wasn’t a roaring success right away. With the First World War looming, Vancouver’s boom had gone bust. Deeley had been importing BSA bicycles and motorcycles from England, but as the war dragged on, he found his supply cut off. So he started selling Brantford Red Bird bicycles made by CCM in Canada, and Harley- Davidson motorcycles made in the U. S. Business picked up after the end of the war, and he expanded to three locations. Bicycles continued to be the main business — Deeley called himself “The Cycle Man.” “There is no pleasure — not even motoring — that equals the combined exercise, air, and exhilarating motion of ‘ wheeling,’” said a Deeley ad from May 2, 1920. “Dash home to lunch — down to work in the morning — home at night again — and SAVE.” In 1925, Deeley opened up a separate motorcycle shop, and another location in 1931 when he started selling Austin cars. In the late 1940s and 1950s, his car dealership thrived — a 1963 story said Deeley had sold 40,000 Austins. His sons, Fred Jr. and Raymond, managed the company for many years, but it was grandson Trevor who turned the motorcycle division into a big money- maker. Like his grandfather, Trev Deeley was a competitive racer, but he raced motorcycles, not bikes. In 1953, he became general manager of the motorcycle wing, and four years later, imported the first Honda motorcycles from Japan to North America. He also became the North American distributor for Yamaha motorcycles. Deeley sold the Yamaha division in 1973, the same year Harley- Davidson asked Deeley to become its exclusive distributor in Canada. Believe it or not, the company continued to sell bicycles until 1990. Fred Sr. died in 1970 at the age of 89. Fred Jr. died in 1988 at 85, Raymond died in 1989 at 82, and Trevor died in 2002 at 82. The business is now largely owned by his former partners, Don James and Malcolm Hunter. The Deeley family remains synonymous with motorcycles in Vancouver, partly because the company maintains an internationally renowned motorcycle museum that includes 250 bikes, from about 60 different manufacturers. When Trev Deeley died, the company held a memorial in Richmond. “Organizers had expected 2,000 people,” Lindsay Kines reported in The Sun. “But police estimated more than 3,000 motorcycles alone descended on the normally quiet cul- de- sac near the Knight Street Bridge.”