23 Facts About Wolseley Motors

Wolseley Motors Limited was a British motor vehicle manufacturer founded in early 1901 by the Vickers armaments combine in conjunction with Herbert Austin.

Wolseley Motors moved it into his Morris Motors empire just before the Second World War.

Wolseley Motors went with its sister businesses into BMC, BMH and British Leyland, where its name lapsed in 1975.

The cars and the Wolseley Motors name came from Austin's exploratory venture for The Wolseley Motors Sheep Shearing Machine Company Limited, run since the early 1890s by the now 33-year-old Austin.

Wolseley Motors's board had decided not to enter the business and Maxim and the Vickers brothers picked it up.

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The first Wolseley Motors cars sold to the public were based on the "Voiturette", but production did not get underway until 1901, by which time the board of WSSMC had lost interest in the nascent motor industry.

Wolseley Motors was the largest British motor manufacturer and Austin's reputation was made.

Wolseley Motors had Peugeot-based demonstration cars at the Crystal Palace in 1903.

Meanwhile, under Siddeley Wolseley Motors maintained the sales lead left to him by Austin but, now run from London, not Birmingham, the whole business failed to cover overheads.

Wolseley Motors resigned from Wolseley in 1909 to go into partnership with H P P Deasy and manage the Deasy Motor Company, of Coventry.

Wolseley Motors was not then as specialised in its operations as members of the motor industry were to become.

In 1914 Wolseley Motors produced a two-wheeled gyroscopically balanced car for the Russian lawyer and inventor Count Peter Schilowsky.

In 1918, Wolseley Motors began a joint venture in Tokyo, with Ishikawajiama Ship Building and Engineering.

Wolseley Motors accordingly purchased from within the Vickers group: Electric and Ordnance Accessories Company Limited, the Motor-Car Ordnance Department and the Timken Bearing Department and announced Wolseley Motors's future car programme would be:.

Wolseley Motors duly took over the Ward End, Birmingham munitions factory from Vickers in 1919 and purchased a site for a new showroom and offices in London's Piccadilly by the Ritz Hotel.

Wolseley Motors still wanted his range to include a light six-cylinder car.

Wolseley Motors sold off large unwanted portions of Wolseley's Adderley Park plant with all his own Soho, Birmingham works and moved Morris Commercial Cars from Soho to the remainder of Adderley Park.

Meanwhile, Wolseley Motors expanded their original design from four to six cylinders.

In 1957 the Wolseley Motors 1500 was based on the planned successor to the Morris Minor, sharing a bodyshell with the Riley One-Point-Five.

Wolseley Motors Hornet was based on the Austin and Morris Mini with a booted body style which was shared with Riley as the Elf.

Wolseley Motors continued in diminished form with the Wolseley Motors Six of 1972, a variant of the Austin 2200, a six-cylinder version of the Austin 1800.

Wolseley Motors produced a number of aircraft engine designs, although there were no major design wins.

When Wolseley Motors Limited was transferred to Morris Motors Limited on 1 July 1935 this part of its business was set aside by William Morris, Lord Nuffield and put in the ownership of a newly incorporated company, Wolseley Aero Engines Ltd, and remained his personal property.