Burman and Sons Ltd, of Ryland Road,

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, West Midlands, was a company that manufactured Burman-Douglas

steering Steering is the control of the direction of motion or the components that enable its control. Steering is achieved through various arrangements, among them ailerons for airplanes, rudders for boats, cylic tilting of rotors for helicopters, ...

gear. Their worm and nut design of steering gear was fitted to pre-war vehicles such as the

Ford Eight Ford 7Y is a car built by Ford UK from 1938 until 1939. During that time 65,098 cars were produced. The car was officially marketed as a Ford Eight, and was a rebodied and slightly larger version of the Model Y. The car was powered by a 8 ...

and the

Ford Prefect The Ford Prefect is a line of British cars which was produced by Ford UK between 1938 and 1961 as an upmarket version of the Ford Popular and Ford Anglia small family cars. It was introduced in October 1938 and remained in production until ...

, the

Bedford CA The Bedford CA was a distinctive pug-nosed light commercial vehicle produced between 1952 and 1969 by Bedford Vehicles, Bedford in Luton, England. It was manufactured in short-wheelbase and long-wheelbase forms, each form available in eithe ...

, plus heavy trucks and off-road vehicles - both pre and post-war. In its day, Burman-Douglas steering-gear was regarded as "...a 'quality' feature of a car chassis specification," though the worm and nut design was eventually surpassed by the more direct

rack and pinion rack and pinion is a type of linear actuator that comprises a circular gear (the '' pinion'') engaging a linear gear (the ''rack''). Together, they convert between rotational motion and linear motion: rotating the pinion causes the rack to be d ...

design which dominates today. The company also manufactured motorcycle gearboxes during part of its history.

References

Automotive companies of England Automotive steering technologies Defunct companies based in Birmingham, West Midlands Manufacturing companies based in Birmingham, West Midlands {{motorvehicle-company-stub