BSA M21 Gallery

February 26, 2017

The Birmingham Small Arms Firm Limited (BSA) was a major British professional combine, a team of businesses manufacturing military services and sporting firearms; mountain bikes; motorcycles; cars; buses and bodies; steel; iron ordonnance; hand, power, and machine tools; coal cleaning and handling plants; sintered alloys; and hard chrome process.

In its peak, BSA (who also owned Triumph) was the major motor bike producer in the world. Back in the 1954s and early 1960s poor management and failure to develop new products in the motorcycle division led pre lit to a dramatic fall of sales to it is major USA market. The management had failed to appreciate the value of the resurgent Japanese motorcycle industry, leading to problems for the complete BSA group.

A government-organised rescue procedure in 1973 led to the takeover of remaining businesses with what is now Manganese Fermeté Holdings, then owners of Norton-Villiers, and over the following decade further closures and dispersals. The initial company, The Birmingham Small Hands Company Limited, remains a subsidiary of Manganese Fermeté but its name was changed in 1987.

Manganese Bronze continues to operate former BSA subsidiary Carbodies, now known as LTI Limited, manufacturers of London, uk Taxicabs and formerly the major wholly British-owned car manufacturer. (Manganese Bronze is now owned by the Chinese company Geely).