Carden Engineering

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Carden Engineering Company Ltd. logo (1913-1922)

The Carden Engineering Company Ltd. was a British manufacturer of cycle cars under the name Carden and developed the Voiturette Sheret.

Company history

Captain (later Sir) John Valentine Carden was an officer, inventor and engineer. His designs included microlight aircraft , amphibious tanks and a cycle car , which was sold as the Carden and from 1922 as the New Carden .

To manufacture it, he founded Carden Engineering Company Ltd. in 1913 . in Teddington . In 1920 the company moved to Ascot . In 1922 he sold the company to Arnott & Harrison Limited in Willesden NW10. The new owners organized them as the New Carden Light Car Company , based at 10 Hythe Street in Willesden, probably the address of the buyer who actually made the vehicles. The company name is misleading because light cars actually mean voiturettes in English , but carden and new carden are to be classified as cycle cars . 1924–1925 was another, slightly more upscale version, which was sold under the Sheret brand . This vehicle was offered with three seats as a light car ( voiturette according to the British definition). Vehicle production ended in 1925.

Sir John Carden was killed in a plane crash in 1935.

Carden

Carden cyclecar (ca.1920). The coil springs on the front axle are clearly visible.

The Carden had a lightweight ladder frame chassis . The air-cooled two-stroke engine was housed in the rear, the petrol tank was under the wrong bonnet. The Cyclecar initially had a semi-elliptical transverse leaf spring at the front and two quarter-elliptical or coil springs at the rear . It seems that the Carden was only offered as a single-seater ("Monocar") from 1913 to around 1919. However, three different engines were already available when it was introduced. In 1913-1914 these were the 4 HP model , which in turn was optionally available with a single-cylinder engine with 482 cm³ displacement or with a two - cylinder boxer engine with 499 cm³ displacement. The weight of the single cylinder model was given as 140 kg. The 5 HP model with a two-cylinder engine was available in 1914 with a displacement of 647 cm³ and between 1915 and 1916 with a displacement of 662 cm³. In 1915 the two-cylinder model 6 HP with 741 cm³ displacement appeared.

The power transmission was done via a two-speed front wall gear and a chain to the rear axle. The petrol tank was in the front. The filler neck was attached to the dummy radiator , where cooling water was refilled in water-cooled vehicles. A screw-on "cooler" figure could also be used as a tank cap .

In 1919 a revised version was published for the model year 1920. From 1920 at the latest there were also coil springs at the front that were attached similarly to those of the Lancia Lambda . The last model was the 7 HP , which was available from 1920 with a two-cylinder engine with a displacement of 707 cm³; the sheret received the same engine.

In the course of its production time, six different engines were offered in the Carden and there were one, two and four-seater bodies.

The first Tamplin Motors model was based on a Carden model.

Models

Carden 7 hp (1921)
model Construction period cylinder Displacement wheelbase body
4 hp 1914 1 482 cc 2286 mm Monocar
7-8 hp 1924-1925 2 row 707 cc 2286 mm tandem

export

Jouve et Cie from Paris sold Carden vehicles in France in 1914 under the brand name Le Sylphe .

literature

  • Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 .
  • George Nick Georgano: Cars. Encyclopédie complète. 1885 à nos jours. Courtille, Paris 1975. (French)
  • George Nick Georgano (Ed.): Complete Encyclopedia of Motorcars, 1885 to the Present. Dutton Press, New York, 2nd edition (hardcover) 1973, ISBN 0-525-08351-0 . (English)
  • David Culshaw, Peter Horrobin: The Complete Catalog of British Cars 1895-1975. Veloce Publishing PLC, Dorchester 1997, ISBN 1-874105-93-6 . (English)

Web links

Commons : Carden  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Georgano: Complete Encyclopedia of Motorcars , p. 173
  2. ^ Culshaw and Horrobin: The Complete Catalog of British Cars 1895-1975.
  3. ↑ cf. Fig.
  4. ^ Culshaw: Complete Catalog of British Cars , pp. 1438-1439
  5. ^ Culshaw: Complete Catalog of British Cars , p. 100
  6. ↑ Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 .