The Gordon Three-Wheeler
Coincidences can be a way of life.
Over a decade ago, I included a
Gordon Three-Wheeler as a brief in this column. Friend Gordon Godsell, with much sarcasm, asked why his namesake ‘The Gordon Three-Wheeler’ has a power bulge where its right-hand door should be. And visiting a local antiques fair, my wife Elaine bought this 6 Penny News Chronicle I-Spy Motorcycles and Cycles book. Within its pages is one of the rarer British made three-wheelers, the Gordon, and the youngster gifted this book spotted one in 1956 for which he was given a miserly 15 points – 150 seems more appropriate to me!
Funded by the Vernons Football Pools Company, the firm’s subsidiary, Vernons Industries
Ltd, Valley Road, Bidston, Wirral, made the Gordon Three Wheeler, which was designed by Erling Poppe (1898-1970), formerly of Packman (Gilmour Packman) & Poppe and commission by
BSA to design the Sunbeam S7. Poppe was of Norwegian descent, born in Austria, brought up in England and studied engineering in Birmingham.
Vernons hoped to make a killing manufacturing the cheapest car in the UK with its price attracting many buyers. Really it is a two-seater, but Vernons’ promotional material informed it had seats for two adults and two children, with the children crammed into the space behind the front seats. Marketed 19541958, the Gordon, priced at £269-17s-6d , was offered with full size interchangeable car type wheels, 50-inch width at elbows, independent suspension, electric starter and independent hand and foot brake.
The launch model was powered by a fan-cooled 197cc two-stroke Villiers 8E engine, which was later replaced by the then new 197cc Villiers 9E. It is believed a few were supplied with two-stroke twincylinder 242cc British Anzani units. Fitted with the 197cc Villiers engine, the Gordon could hit 45mph and return precisely, its maker’s claimed, 76mpg. Its modest performance confirms the right-hand side extended cowl, open to front and back, is no power bulge, but rather a cooling aid, with the engine exposed to a through flow of cooling air once under way. It may look bizarre, but has its advantages over light cars such as the AC Petite with its Villiers 346cc single cylinder unit mounted to the rear of the car and in line causing it to overheat in hot weather or traffic.
Despite the best efforts of dealers like Raymond Way Ltd of Kilburn, who offered the Gordon Three Wheeler on easy terms (nicknamed ‘the never, never’ in period) with a one fifth deposit, it sold slowly, suggesting no more than 1500 were built of which at least one, and probably a few more, survive.