DAYTON CYCLE CO

While many people will know of Dayton scooters of the late 1950s, fewer may realise that the Dayton Cycle Co was building motorcycles as early as 1913. In that year a small machine with a 162cc Stellar engine was unveiled. It had a chain-driven two-speed gearbox and Druid forks and was followed by other models, including one for the ladies and a tiller-steered invalid carriage.

The First World War then intervened but Dayton did continue manufacturing with a 269cc Villiers-equipped lightweight in 1920. That was on display at the Olympia show the following year along with a Blackburne-engined tricycle. But then, as was the case with so many firms, the doors closed in 1922.

But it wasn’t the end. The company, now in Shoreditch, continued making bicycles and then, in 1939, returned to motorised machines with a 98cc Villiers engine autocycle. It was not an auspicious time to be launching a new motorcycle and it was only listed for a year. The company weathered the Second World War and concentrated on bicycles once more.

It still wasn’t the end. In 1955 Dayton entered the scooter market with a machine it called the Albatross; for several generations that had grown up learning Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner it may not have seemed a promising name and indeed it struggled. With a 224cc Villiers 1H engine it was heavy; it didn’t look as stylish as the popular Italian scooters of the time and it had that name. It was billed as a ‘super scooter,’ which meant it just alienated both markets, the scooterists and the motorcyclists, at whom it was pitched. In fact, it pre-empted the ‘crossover’ scooters like the modern Suzuki Burgman by over half a century.

In 1957 a second model was introduced with the new Villiers 250cc twin cylinder engine, followed by the addition of new front legshields and mudguard and called the

Dayton Continental. In 1958 the maroon and black Continental Twin cost £230 which was more expensive than many of its

Italian rivals, not to mention the British competition in the DKR. Production came to a permanent halt in 1960. Today the Dayton Albatross is far more appreciated than it was at the time and is a rare and quirky beast.

Model Susan Flynn on the 1956 Dayton Albatross. Powered by a 225cc Villiers two-stroke (the scooter that is, not the lovely Miss Flynn) with a top speed of 65mph and returning 84 miles to the gallon, it sold for £161 5s.

The 1914 Dayton Lightweight with a 162cc engine which The Motor Cycle reported as having ‘performed very creditably in the recent Sutton Coldfield and Mid-Warwickshire open trial for miniature motor cycles’.