Riley
Riley
|
|
---|---|
legal form | Limited Company |
founding | 1895 (as The Riley Cycle Company ) |
resolution | 1969 |
Seat | Coventry , UK |
management | William Riley (Founder) |
Branch | Automobile manufacturer |
Riley was an English automobile manufacturer specializing in the production of sports cars and which existed as an independent company until 1939. The product name existed as a brand until 1969.
history
At the beginning, as with some other automobile manufacturers, there was the construction of bicycles. William Riley had already made his fortune with two-wheelers in Coventry . In 1897, his son Percy Riley constructed a so-called three-wheel voiturette from bicycle parts and a De Dion Bouton single cylinder . He didn't just do this out of a passion for innovation . It was then that the child labor ban came into force in England . If his father had previously been able to make a big deal with cheap labor, his son had to look around for a more profitable branch of production.
Motorized four-wheeled vehicles followed in 1900. In 1903, Riley began building its own drive units with a 517 cm³ V2 cylinder, which had either water or air cooling. Four years later, the designers took another step and offered the first four-wheeled Riley with 1034 cc and 9 hp , the first car with mechanical inlet valve control . The spoked wheels with central locking were also completely new. After this design was patented , many well-known automobile manufacturers, including Fiat , Renault and Mercedes , purchased their wheels from Riley for a certain period of time.
Percy Riley, the technical head of the company, continued to design pioneering detailed solutions and founded a new factory in Coventry with his brother Stanley in 1919 to produce the car that was to guarantee them a breakthrough for two decades: the Riley 10.8 "Redwing" was built in 1498 cm³ the high power of 35 HP for the time. It had light alloy pistons, modern electrical equipment and only six lubrication points. The two-seater sports version of the “Redwing” was particularly successful in the interwar years.
The company's best-known car on the continent, however, was the 1.1-liter Riley 9 "Monaco", which was produced since 1926 and was originally designed as a small family car thanks to the tuning of a Reid Railton and the driving skills of the racing driver Parry Thomas proven and popular sports car. At the beginning of the 1930s, it was above all the little red Riley racers who achieved successes in their respective classes in all kinds of sports car races and rallies .
As early as 1928, Riley brought out a six-cylinder and seven years later the eight-cylinder " Adelphi " model, but the main accent remained the small four-seaters and roadsters . However, they were produced in an uneconomical variety of types that exhausted the capital reserves. Even before the Second World War , William R. Morris took over the factories in 1939 in order to integrate them into their own group.
After the war, the future Formula 1 world champion Mike Hawthorn , among others, achieved his first successes in motorsport with a Riley. The construction of the large " Pathfinder " limousine was stopped in 1957. After that, BMC , later British Leyland, used the Riley brand, such as Wolseley or MG, until 1969 only for the better-equipped versions of the models that were otherwise sold as Austin and Morris.
Models 1907–1914
Type | Construction period |
---|---|
Riley 9 | 1907-1911 |
Riley 10 | 1909-1914 |
Riley 12 / Riley 12/18 | 1907-1914 |
Models 1914–1940
Type | Construction period |
---|---|
Riley 1 1/2 / Riley 1 1/2 (Adelphi + Falcon + Kestrel + Lynx + Merlin) | 1936-1940 |
Riley 2 1/2 | 1937-1939 |
Riley 8/90 | 1935 |
Riley 9 / Riley 9 (Kestrel + Monaco) | 1926-1935 |
Riley 10 | 1915-1916 |
Riley 8/10 | 1919-1928 |
Riley 11.9 / Riley 11/40 | 1924-1928 |
Riley 12/4 (Falcon + Kestrel) | 1934-1935 |
Riley 12/6 | 1935 |
Riley 14-6 | 1929-1934 |
Riley 15/6 (Adelphi + Falcon + Lynx + Kestrel) | 1934-1938 |
Riley 17th | 1914-1923 |
Riley Alpine | 1931-1933 |
Riley Brooklands | 1928-1932 |
Riley MPH | 1934-1935 |
Riley Sprite | 1936 |
Riley Stelvio | 1930-1934 |
Models 1946–1969
Type | Construction period |
---|---|
Riley 1 1/2 liter | 1946-1955 |
Riley 1.5 | 1957-1965 |
Riley 2 1/2 liter | 1946-1953 |
Riley 2.6 | 1957-1958 |
Riley 4/68 | 1959-1961 |
Riley 4/72 | 1961-1969 |
Riley Elf (ADO 15) | 1961-1969 |
Riley Kestrel 1100 (ADO 16) | 1965-1967 |
Riley kestrel 1300 | 1967-1969 |
Riley Pathfinder | 1953-1957 |
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Encyclopedia of the Automobile. ISBN 3-89350-534-2 , p. 348.