Chater Lea

Chater-Lea was a British motorcycle , car and bicycle manufacturer based in central London .

The company was founded by William Chater-Lea in 1900 to produce components for bicycles. It was located in a nine-story building on Banner Street in the City of London and, since 1928, in buildings in Letchworth, Hertfordshire .

Chater-Lea built cars between 1907 and 1922 and motorcycles from 1903 to 1935. William died in 1927, and the company was continued by his sons, John and Bernard. After the end of vehicle production, the company remained represented in the vehicle market as a manufacturer and dealer for components.

Car production

Chater-Lea from 1913

The first car was the Carette from 1907, a two-seater with an air-cooled 6 HP V2 cylinder engine with chain drive to one of the rear wheels. The vehicle appeared in advertising until 1908, but only a few copies appear to have been produced.

A more serious appearance on the car market happened in 1913 with the water-cooled 8-HP-1094-cm³ four-cylinder model with cardan shaft. The engine came from our own construction. Some cars may initially have had the V2 engine.

After the First World War, it was re-released in 1921 as a 10 hp car, with a 1315 cc engine and three-speed gearbox . The two-seater cost £ 350, later the price dropped to £ 300. Several hundreds were produced by 1922.

Chater-Lea had an offer to take over the Gillyard factory on Bakerend Road. Ultimately, however, it was not noticed, although a prototype appears to have been made.

A Chater-Lea 10 hp, which was dated 1914, was offered at auction on April 7, 1997 by British Car Auctions , but did not find a bidder for 30,000  DM .

Motorcycle production

Chater Lea road racing machine from 1929, 350 cm³, with vertical shaft drive and plate cams

The company has been manufacturing frames for bicycles since 1900 and soon also offered motors for attachment to bicycles. Complete motorcycles have been in production since 1903 and registrations were made for the Tourist Trophy races on the Isle of Man in 1908 .

The peacetime production began again in 1919 with a two-cylinder model, which was later followed by large single-cylinder models. In 1925 we started building our own engines. The last motorcycles were made in 1936. Chater-Lea temporarily had the world's fastest 350 series motorcycle in production.

Web links

Commons : Chater-Lea  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bernd Woytal: The Middle Kingdom. In: Motor Klassik , edition 7/1997, p. 60.