The Castle Three was a British three-wheeled

cyclecar A cyclecar was a type of small, lightweight and inexpensive motorized car manufactured in Europe and the United States between 1910 and the early 1920s. The purpose of cyclecars was to fill a gap in the market between the motorcycle and the c ...

made from 1919 to 1922 by the Castle Motor Company of Castle Mill Works, New Road,

Kidderminster Kidderminster is a market town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, south-west of Birmingham and north of Worcester, England, Worcester. Located north of the River Stour, Worcestershire, River Stour and east of the River Severn, in th ...

, Worcestershire.

History

The company was originally a car repair business founded in 1906 by brothers Stanley and Laughton Goodwin but grew to make munitions during World War I and entered the car building business with the coming of peace and the post-war boom.

The cars

The car was aimed at the top end of the Cyclecar market and so was fitted with a four-cylinder, water-cooled engine. The first batch of cars had side-valve, straight four, Dorman engines of 1094 cc with the remainder using Belgian Peters 1207 cc engines. These were in-unit with a gearbox, either of two-speed epicyclic or three-speed conventional type and drove the single rear wheel by a shaft and bevel gears. The open two-seater body with

dickey seat A rumble seat (American English), dicky (dickie/dickey) seat (British English), also called a mother-in-law seat, is an upholstered exterior front-facing seat which is folded into the rear of a Coach (carriage), coach, carriage, or early motorcar. ...

had a smart nickel-plated radiator and electric lighting and was attached on a chassis with the suspension using quarter elliptic leaf springs at the front and semi elliptic at the rear. Unusually for a cyclecar,

artillery wheel The artillery wheel was a nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century style of wagon, gun carriage, and automobile wheel. Rather than having its spokes mortised into a wooden nave (hub), it has them fitted together in a keystone fashion with m ...

s were used rather than wire-spoked ones. The car was exhibited at the 1919 London Motor Show and a reputed 2,300 orders were taken. Not all these were confirmed and it is estimated that around 350 were made. Two are known to survive. A prototype of a four-wheel version was made but never went into production. The company closed in 1922, selling the works to a carpet maker.

Successor

In August 2013 the Castle Three Motor Company Limited was incorporated in Alnwick, Northumberland with plans to develop, manufacture and sell new generation three-wheeled sports cars for the recreational and motor sport markets.Company website
/ref> While the original had 2+1 seating and a four-cylinder engine, the new three-wheeler will have two seats and use an externally sourced twin-pot — either in V or boxer form — to power the rear wheel via a largely proprietary drivetrain.

References

{{Reflist Cyclecars Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of England Kidderminster Companies based in Worcestershire

History

The cars

Successor

See also

References