Challenge Cycle Co of Challenge Works, 210 Foleshill Road, Coventry with designer and manufacturer Edward Salmon O'Brien
1901 Company established at 24 Bishop Street, Coventry and later at Bishop Street before settling in Foleshill Road in 1903.
1903 The Coventry-Challenge were motorcycles produced by them from 1903 to 1922. Production and design was managed by Francis Salmon O'Brien
1903 to circa 1913. Produced by a small firm, the machines were built by a cycle dealer who fitted various engines and other bought-in parts to his heavy-duty bicycle frames. Engines used were Minerva and Fafnir, followed by JAP and Precision.
1905 Although there was a slump in the motorcycle industry, the firm managed to keep going, and at one point returned to the manufacture of bicycles only
1914 onwards. At about this time they returned to the production of powered machines and used Villiers two-stroke engines, with the models sold as Challenge-Villiers.
After the First World War they used JAP single and V-twin engines. It is then presumed that lack of supplies meant that the production of bicycles and carrier cycles was better business.
See Challenge Cycle and Motor Co
In the 1920s Coventry Ensign Cycle and Motor Co was at this address, as was Coventry-Eagle Cycle and Motor Co
See Also
Sources of Information
- The British Motorcycle Directory - Over 1,100 Marques from 1888 - by Roy Bacon and Ken Hallworth. Pub: The Crowood Press 2004 ISBN 1 86126 674 X
- The Encyclopedia of the Motorcycle by Peter Henshaw. Published 2007. ISBN 978 1 8401 3967 9
- Coventry’s Motorcycle Heritage by Damien Kimberley. 2009. ISBN 978 0 7509 5125 8