Erling Poppe (12 November 1898 – 1970) was an Austrian-born English-raised motor vehicle designer who studied engineering in

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 ...

, England, and designed Packman & Poppe Motorcycles, Sunbeam motorcycles and

Gordon Gordon may refer to: People * Gordon (given name), a masculine given name, including list of persons and fictional characters * Gordon (surname), the surname * Gordon (slave), escaped to a Union Army camp during the U.S. Civil War * Gordon Heuck ...

three-wheeler cars.

Early life

Poppe was born in

Steyr Steyr (; ) is a statutory city (Austria), statutory city, located in the Austrian federal state of Upper Austria. It is the administrative capital, though not part of Steyr-Land District. Steyr is Austria's 12th most populated town and the 3rd lar ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, 12 November 1898, the son of Norwegian Peter August Poppe and Frederikke Emilie Poppe,1911 census

Findmypast Findmypast is a UK-based online genealogy service owned, since 2007, by British company DC Thomson. The website hosts billions of searchable records of census, directory and historical record information. It originated in 1965 when a group of ge ...

while his father had been on loan to

Steyr Mannlicher Steyr Arms () is a firearms manufacturer based in Austria. Originally part of ''Steyr-Daimler-Puch'', it became independent when the conglomerate was broken up in 1989. Prior to 1 January 2019, the company was named ''Steyr Mannlicher GmbH Co. ...

. The whole family were settled in Coventry by February 1901 when their next child was born.

Motor cycles

At Packman & Poppe Motorcycles in 1922 Erling Poppe was responsible for their first motorcycle which featured a 250 cc two-stroke engine, a 976 cc side-valve machine with a

JAP ''Jap'' is an English abbreviation of the word " Japanese". In the United States, some Japanese Americans have come to find the term offensive because of the internment they suffered during World War II. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, ''Jap ...

V-twin engine in 1923 and the ''Silent Three'' using a 350 cc Barr and Stroud sleeve-valve engine. Poppe designed the

Sunbeam S7 and S8 The Sunbeam S7 and S8 are British motorcycles designed by Erling Poppe with styling loosely based on the BMW R75 designs that were acquired as war reparations by BSA (full rights to the Sunbeam brand had been acquired from AMC in 1943). Bu ...

motorcycles based on the

BMW R75 : ''For the 1970s 750 cc motorcycles see BMW R75/5, BMW R75/6, or BMW R75/7'' The BMW R75 is a World War II-era motorcycle and sidecar combination produced by the German company BMW. The BMW R75 stands out by its integral two-wheel drive desig ...

designs that were acquired by BSA (together with the full rights to the

Sunbeam A sunbeam, in meteorological optics, is a lightbeam, beam of sunlight that appears to radiate from the position of the Sun. Shining through openings in clouds or between other objects such as mountains and buildings, these beams of light scatter ...

brand) at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Built in

Redditch Redditch is a town and non-metropolitan district with borough status in Worcestershire, England. It is located south of Birmingham, east of Bromsgrove, north-west of Alcester and north-east of Worcester. In 2021, the town had a population of ...

, the engine layout was an unusual in-line 500 cc twin with a shaft drive to the rear wheel.

Motorcars

, Poppe designed a three-wheeled two-seater with a single front wheel. The single-cylinder, 197 cc, Villiers engine was mounted next to the driver (RHD), outside of the body with an external chain-drive to one rear wheel. Access to the interior was via a single door. The steel body had a folding fabric roof, and at £300 it was the cheapest car on the UK market.The Complete Encyclopedia of Motorcars, 1885 to the Present. Edited by

G.N. Georgano George Nicolas "Nick" Georgano (29 February 1932 – 22 October 2017Nick Georgano
Alvis Archive Bl ...

. Published by George Rainbird Ltd, 1973.Linz, Schrader: ''Die Internationale Automobil-Enzyklopädie.''Georgano: ''The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poppe, Erling British automobile designers Norwegian emigrants to the United Kingdom Alumni of the University of Birmingham 1898 births 1970 deaths People from Steyr