Before the motorcycle properly found its shape, the quadricycle looked like the future. This is a look at a 1901 Royal Enfield quad – the start of big things to come at the Worcestershire factory.
Words and Photos: Rich Orriss
At the turn of the twentieth century, four-wheeled machines were becoming increasingly popular as engineers searched for practical ways to adapt the bicycle into powered transport. Roads were poor, engines were weak, and reliability mattered more than outright speed. Adding extra wheels gave stability, space for passengers, and enabled frames that were solid enough to house the chunky engines of the time – in particular the tall De Dion Boutons. For a short period around 1900, the quadricycle sat neatly between the bicycle and the motorcar.
And Royal Enfield were one manufacturer who dipped their toe into the world of the quad before turning to two-wheels. This article looks at a 1901 machine from the Royal Enfield collection – an operational example that took part in the 2025 Banbury Run.
The origins of Royal Enfield stretch back to George Townsend & Company, a small engineering business established near Redditch during the Victorian period. Like many firms of the bicycle boom years, the company moved into cycle production before reorganising as the Enfield Cycle Company, producing machines under the now-famous Royal Enfield name.
By the closing years of the nineteenth century, Enfield had already begun experimenting with powered transport, building De Dion-engined tricycles and quadricycles before producing its first motorcycles around 1900. These early fore-cars and quads sat firmly in that transitional period where manufacturers were still trying to work out what the future of motor transport would actually look like.
Like most makers of the era, Royal Enfield relied heavily on the dependable French-built De Dion-Bouton engine. In truth, if you wanted a compact petrol engine that worked properly in 1901, De Dion was usually the answer. Their engines powered countless pioneer machines across Europe, including this one.
The single-cylinder engine fitted here uses a mechanical exhaust valve and atmospheric inlet valve, the inlet opening purely by engine vacuum rather than cam operation. It is wonderfully primitive by later standards, but entirely typical of the period. Cooling is equally straightforward, with the cylinder barrel air-cooled, while the head relies on a basic thermosiphon water system without any pump. Lubrication is total-loss and manual, the rider feeding oil by hand onto the flywheel and trusting it to distribute itself around the engine.
Driving it is a reminder of how different these pioneer machines were from later motorcycles. There is no conventional clutch, only a simple cone arrangement bringing the drive in directly. One speed, little finesse, and absolutely no room for indecision. To start it, the whole machine must be pedalled into motion until enough momentum builds for the engine to catch. Once it fires, you are committed.
Performance was modest even by Edwardian standards. Fifteen miles per hour came comfortably enough, perhaps nudging into the 30s with favourable conditions and a bit of bravery from the operator. Braking, meanwhile, is handled by a cast pad clad with buffalo hide that presses directly onto the rear tyres – effective enough on a dry road and considerably less reassuring everywhere else!
Put yourself into the position of the front seat passenger – sat on a chair in front of all four wheels, making a small prayer on the approach to every junction, and every hazard. Helmets were not a thing back in 1901 either. The seat does however have some comfort – for a start it looks like an armchair, but it also has some leaf-spring suspension.
The quadricycle cruises comfortably at around 15mph, but this one has been clocked at 30-35mph, and with a 13-litre fuel tank the quad is able to cover a fair distance. In fact, rumour has it that in 1901 a French chap set a record on one such machine, reaching 60mph. Whether that is entirely accurate is another matter but let’s go with it.
What makes this machine particularly interesting is its known history. According to surviving Cumbria registration records, the forecar was registered in January 1904 as ‘EC 32’ to Edward Boyd Hargreaves of Kendal. Ownership later passed through Richard Hodgson of Milnthorpe, A E Reynolds of Liverpool and F H Babcock of St Albans, while its Veteran Car Club dating certificate was issued in 1957 when it still carried its original registration.
The machine later found its way to Italy, eventually becoming part of the world’s only specialist sidecar museum in Cingoli. Believed to have been restored during the 1950s, it was eventually repatriated and now forms part of the Royal Enfield collection.
Royal Enfield clearly had confidence in these early quads. One example, crewed by Messrs Iliffe and Grew, successfully completed the Automobile Club’s gruelling 1,000 Mile Trial of 1900 between London and Edinburgh, earning a silver medal in the process. Yet by 1905 the company’s focus had shifted increasingly toward car production, with the motorcycle side of the business temporarily fading before returning properly in 1910 with Motosacoche-powered V-twins.
This machine sits right at the point before the motorcycle finally became the motorcycle. Within only a few years the familiar layout – two wheels, fuel tank and low-mounted engine – would become standard, while the awkward tricycles and quadricycles quietly disappeared into history.
Which is exactly why this Royal Enfield feels so appropriate at Banbury.
It is not fast or particularly practical. But it represents the moment before everything settled into place – when engineers were still experimenting and simply trying to make powered transport work.
This fantastic film from The Good Time Motorbike Channel looks over this machine, with John Oakes @classicbikeman at the mic.
an article by The Girder Club
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