Vespa Douglas company

Vespa Douglas company

Vespa Douglas company

    The Douglas company of Kingswood, Bristol, commenced motorcycle production in 1907. By 1948 it was effectively bankrupt, actually going into receivership that year. When on holiday in Italy the same year the Managing Director, Claude McCormack, caught sight of a Vespa and soon made arrangements with Piaggio to build it under licence in Bristol.  Not long after the war, Douglas was in difficulty again and reduced its output to the 350 cc flat twin models. The MD Claude McCormack caught sight of a Vespa whilst on holiday in Italy and almost immediately made arrangements with Piaggio to build it under licence in the UK. A Piaggio built machine first appeared on the Douglas Stand at the motorcycle Show at Earls Court in 1949.

    Brothers William and Edward Douglas founded the Douglas Engineering Company in Bristol. Initially doing blacksmith work, they progressed to foundry work, and then acquired the flat twin design of W. J. Barter, the founder of Light Motors Ltd. Barter had produced his first single-cylinder motorcycle between 1902 and 1904, and then a 200 cc horizontal twin called the Fair but the Light Motors Ltd. failed in 1907 and was taken over by the Douglas family.

    The Piaggio built machine was on the Douglas stand at the Motorcycle Show at Earls Court in 1949, but production did not actually start until April 1951. The early Vespas were almost entirely built in Britain. The Douglas Foundry churned out items such as engine bearers, clutch covers and cylinder heads, whilst from the machinery shop came gear clusters, brake drums and much else besides. Most of the pressings were made by Pressed Steel in Birmingham. After the introduction of the 152L2 model, more parts were sourced from Piaggio. The Douglas factory was always, however, more than a mere assembly plant. 

    The introduction of the Vespa to the UK has been subject to a fair amount of sanitisation. Piaggio actually made approaches to other companies before settling on Douglas. Why Douglas? With their production lines working flat out, the idea of an additional large scale manufacturing facility with the capacity to supply the surely huge sales potential of the British Commonwealth must have seemed irresistible. The reality was that, despite their fairly impressive factory and history, Douglas were completely broke. They were actually in receivership under the flamboyant guidance of Claude McCormack. With his trademark cigar and Rolls Royce, McCormack must have done a good selling job on Enrico Piaggio. Courtesy of Paolo Pezzini of the Piaggio Archive who tracked down the original letters, and VVC club member John Cook who had them translated into English, we now have some of Enrico’s early correspondence to Douglas.

 

    To put this correspondence in some kind of context, Douglas were in receivership in 1951 and in fact remained so until taken over by Westinghouse late in 1955. How Douglas could have gone broke so soon after being fully occupied by war production is an interesting point to be covered some other time. The Italians gave Douglas not only the UK market but also large areas of the globe covered by Commonwealth countries e.g. Canada, Australasian and Southern Africa. Clearly Piaggio were expecting big-scale production from Douglas.