Jerry Thurston
The latest avian-named two-stroke addition is not a Francis-Barnett, but a Sunbeam – well, sort of…
Ican’t resist a bargain, so when I spotted a ‘Seagull’ outboard motor in the local classified ads, it had to be bought. I briefly tried to talk myself out of it but resistance was futile; not only was it just a couple of miles away, it was also being offered at what I considered to be a very good price. The other upside of buying a motor so far inland meant that this one had probably never seen the sea – great news from the corrosion point of view. Indeed, from the pictures, I could already see that under a layer of goo, it was in extraordinary condition.
When I contacted the owner and managed to knock another 20 quid off the asking price, the already inevitable deal was sealed.
I like motorcycles, not boats, so what was I doing even considering this, no matter what the price? The simple answer is that the humble Seagull outboard, which sold in the hundreds of thousands, has very strong motorcycling connections.
It appears that somebody at the Sunbeam motorcycle company (or to be more exact John
Marston Ltd) liked messing about on the river – Bob Cordon Champ’s book shows the Deloford portable boat from the late 1920s and, in 1931, the company announced a small light outboard motor, yours for £26 or alternatively £7-10s down, with easy payment terms. Machined by Marston’s sub-company, The Villiers engineering Co Ltd (yes, that Villiers), the outboard portion of the business would soon be hived off in the hands of two former Sunbeam employees and find its way from the industrial heart of England to a factory in Poole, Dorset.
Checking the numbers on minew revealed it was a very early 1970s built version – of course, too much to hope that it would be one of the rare Marston-built ones. Many more tides had lapped the shore before the one I had bought puttered out of the Poole factory in 1971.
Getting it to run meant sorting the Villiers ignition and carb which felt like time travel – although it was built in the 1970s, this was early motorcycle technology. No spark? First jobs, clean the points, check the connections and change the plug. Apart from the water-cooled barrel, it was rather like having any smallcapacity 1930s-50s two-stroke bike motor on its side, up on the bench.
Although 1971 was half a century ago, it’s not really
I like motorcycles, not boats, so what was I doing even considering this, no matter what the price?
very ‘vintage’ in my mind. Persuading it to run nicely and giving it a bit of love was fun, but it was just a bit too new to be a ‘keeper.’ An earlier one, however, would be a different matter.
During a call to a specialist to track down a couple of gaskets, our conversation turned to this, and, by the end of the chat, we had agreed that he would swap a complete, quite good and much rarer 1951 version for my 1971, if I would chuck in a crisp £20 note to sweeten the deal. I was happy to do the deal – definitely much more my sort of thing.
Having had two up on the bench in a matter of days, I began to realise that no matter when they were built, all retain most of the design features seen on the first versions, this including plain bronze bearings, a deflector piston and the famed Villiers flywheel-magneto ignition. They are brilliantly simple; after very few hours, we got spark and not long afterwards, the motor was running brightly in a tank of water for an extended test.
Here I find out their downside; these early motors, with their plain bearing design, demand a very oil-rich mixture, a terrifying 8:1, to try and give the internals a chance of survival. The engine can’t possibly burn it all and the exhaust is directed down into the water – after 10 minutes in a tank, I have quite a thick layer of unburned oil floating on the liquid. I am not comfortable with causing that level of pollution in any watercourse, so this motor will remain a curio.
Now I keep bumping into other motorcycle firms that have built outboards – British Anzani made thousands and are perhaps better known for marine offerings than their motorcycles, there are more too. Following a bit of internet scrolling, I find a picture of an Indian; apparently in 1930 they too had a punt at a waterborne motor. Even ATCO – better known for lawnmowers – made some. I’m sure that other famous motorcycle manufacturers did too, I just haven’t found them yet.
This leaves me wondering – did Sunbeam miss a trick here? Hindsight is of course 20:20 vision, they could not have possibly known that a small outdated two-stroke outboard which they hived off as part of the ICI takeover would still be in production as late as 1993. I’m sure the notion that the once mighty Sunbeam concern would be outlasted by its humble outboard motor division wouldn’t have occurred either. Funny how things turn out!