Famous Marques of Well-Known Countries
Famous Marques of Well-Known Countries
ASR of England
Peter Egan
ASR, an acronym for Ashton Stemly Rinton, who founded the company in 1907, became one of the great names in 20th Century motorcycling. Rinton, a portly but not entirely unhandsome rug importer and manufacturer of treacle containers, acquired the patent rights to an Oxo substitute, but soon found it more profitable to manufacture small motorbikes.
The very first ASR, known as the Mark 7, or “Dolt,” was powered by a proprietary 1.3 hp Single of some 1 800cc displacement and undersquare bore and stroke dimensions of 31 x 540 mm. Ignition was by carbide blowtorch and timed trapdoor. The Mk. 7 featured separate handlebar controls for spark advance, rocker oiling, mixture control and chain lubrication, in addition to the hand clutch and tank shift, all of which caused the rider, as one observer put it, to “look like a bloody carnival seal trying to play Flight of the Bumblebee on a row of bicycle horns.” In World War I thousands of these machines, fitted with twin Browning ARs and full armor, were sold to the British Army, which used them in training films and then directed the company to make dynamos for searchlights instead.
After the war, Rinton introduced the ASR “Exceptional” V-Twin and coined the marque’s famous but controversial advertising slogan, “The Cadillac of RollsRoyces.” The 3000cc Exceptional was tailored to the growing luxury market of the Twenties and featured an automatic gearshift lever finder and a self-leveling Carbide & Rosewater solid brass headlamp. Sidestand, seat and handgrips were heavily chromed to a lustrous finish; totalloss oiling came standard. Tom “Tommy” Hardgrave set six world records at Brooklands when he became the first Englishman from Maidstone to circle the famous oval for one hour and nine minutes at a constant 59 mph. T.E. Lawrence owned six of these fine machines, then sold them and bought something else.
ASR, with unfortunate timing, introduced the very expensive flagship, the 5000cc “Perfidion Six” just as the Depression struck. On the edge of bankruptcy, Rinton sold the company in 1934 to Amalgamated Brass Key Ltd., whose other holdings included trains, tunnels and cigars. ABK breathed new life into ASR when they hired Tony “Hop” Bertwood to design a new 500cc sporting vertical Twin. On a Monday in April, 1935, Bertwood completed his design and named it the Agitator Twin. That same week he designed all the other engines that would be used in British motorcycles forever.
The Agitator was an instant success with the public. It was light, faster than a comparably priced Single, and offered wet sump lubrication with a remote oil tank. A cleverly designed 13-piece banjo fitting kept fuel leakage to a new minimum and the non-unit gearbox became virtually unburstable as, for the first time, individual gears were actually flame hardened, rather than just “stored in a bushel basket over by the radiator.” Five of the new Agitators were entered at the Isle of Man in 1936, and Tony “Bif” Griffith held a very solid 9th place, until his motor stopped running. The other four had retired earlier with carb tickler malfunctions just outside the Douglas city limits.
World War II saw the company once more manufacturing dynamos for searchlights. A large Army contract for a fleet of courier bikes was cancelled as British semaphore techniques and telephone diction improved. In 1941 a Luftwaffe 500pounder nearly destroyed the factory works, but plucky company employees and managers banded together and in less than three months had constructed another plant “about 12 feet to the left.”
At war’s end, low octane “pool” petrol forced ASR to lower the compression ratio on their high performance Twin to — 5.4:1. This was accomplished by having the piston lower in the cylinder at TDC than it was at BDC. Performance suffered, but American servicemen, raised on big VTwins, fell in love with the light British Twins because they weighed less than Jeeps.
The American market grew rapidly, and by the early Sixties ASR was firmly established on these shores. The Japanese had begun to sell thousands of tiny 50 to lOOcc motorbikes by then, but ASR management was unconcerned. They felt that the Japanese, a small people, were incapable of building a large motorcycle with big pistons and rods. All was well until the late Sixties, when the Japanese cleverly sidestepped this problem by using many small pistons and rods, rather than trying to wrestle with one or two large ones, and Oriental designs began to compete in the big bike marketplace.
Suddenly in financial hot water, ASR was forced to approach the government for a loan and was repeatedly turned down, until a reluctant House of Commons voted to lend the beleagured firm “five bob until Thursday.” ASR’s problems were compounded when the Agitator Twin, now punched out to 950cc, began to have fire problems. Hot oil from the totalloss lubrication system would ignite on the hot exhaust pipes, sending clouds of orange and black flame billowing around the legs of rider and passenger. Persistent complaints from dealers went unanswered by the parent company. ASR appeared to be doomed financially.
Then, in 1971, Associated Railroad & Buggywhip Fetish, Ltd. stepped in and bought the foundering company and placed its production facilities under the managerial a.egis of BPR (Birmingham Porch Repair), another of its family of farflung business interests. Associated Railroad also transfused new engineering blood into ASR, in the person of Tony “Tony” Tragg. Tragg saved the aging Agitator 950 from extinction with a revolutionary idea. Improvising brilliantly, he introduced the patented “Pyro-Septic System,” nothing more than a simple set of asbestos chaps which isolated the rider and passenger from the burning engine. The public loved it and sales surged.
By 1973 the company was again in trouble, as production workers went on strike, protesting unfair football pools, Princess Margaret’s allowance and demanding a second 40-watt light bulb over the assembly line. Workers also complained of a badly worn bit in the drill press. Management countered by giving itself a healthy raise and purchasing a new set of onyx tie clips from Harrods. Quality control problems arose as old equipment, originally built to produce searchlight dynamos, broke down or fell out of adjustment. Records showed that management had spent only 85 pounds on factory improvements since 1907, most of that on failed tea-cart bearings. A new water-cooled V-16 engine project had to be shelved because public utilities officials in Shipshampton-OnBlades, home to the historic plant, refused to turn the power on until back bills were paid.
Motorcycle production ceased at the end of that year but the name ASR lives on in the hearts and minds of all those who demanded the best in motorcycling, but couldn’t afford it and bought one of the many bikes ASR produced over the years. ASR’s racing record speaks for itself, and those who saw it compete against such classics as the Norton Manx or the BSA Gold Star will not soon forget either of those fine bikes, nor the many victories ASR delivered into their grateful hands. Si
