Singer Tricycle

In 1899, Edwin Perks and Frank Birch in Coventry presented the Motor Wheel they had designed. A year later, the rights to the design were taken over by their next door neighbor, bicycle manufacturer Singer, who used the wheel on a motorized version of both its bicycles and tricycles.

The 'Motorwiel' consists of an 8 spoke aluminum wheel with a single cylinder engine and fuel tank built into it. It was designed to simply replace the front or rear wheel of a bicycle. As an option, from 1901 onward, spare oil and fuel tanks were available, hanging from the top tube of the frame and protected by a leather bag. This greatly increased the range. The unorthodox design was successful in this period, despite reports of poor riding comfort, because the relatively heavy wheel sank into every pothole and bounced over every bump. Very few Singer tricycles are currently known, which makes this an exceptionally rare machine from the pioneering days of motoring.