1952 BSA B33 500cc Motorcycle

Description

The history of the Birmingham Small Arms Company dates back to 1854 when a group of local businessmen began suppling guns for the Crimean War. BSA diversified into bicycles in the 1880s and, following a natural progression, the company began offering proprietory engines such as the Belgian Minerva to power their two-wheeled products in the early 1900s. Ultimately BSA commenced production of its own engines in 1910, with a side-valve single displacing 500cc becoming the mainstay of production well into the 1920s, despite the introduction of more sophisticated ohv models. BSA was the most successful British motorbike manufacturer in the inter-war period, with company literature boasting that one in four motorcycles on the roads in the United Kingdom came from the Birmingham factory. BSA's first new post-war model was the B31 introduced in 1945 although much of the design was familiar, with a rigid frame and telescopic forks and a single-cylinder four-stroke engine. A larger 500cc capacity version known as the B33 joined the range and competition derivatives of both 350/500 models were available, badged the B32 and B34 respectively. The more powerful B33, with around 23 horsepower on tap, could reach a maximum speed of around 80 mph and cruise happily on 60 mph. The frame design followed the typical pattern of development through the late 1940s and into the 1950s, with rear plunger suspension becoming an option in 1949 before a full swing-arm frame design was adopted in 1954. BSA struggled to compete with the new breed of Japanese imports in the 1960s and was absorbed into the Norton-Villiers-Triumph Group in 1971 before ceasing altogether in 1973.