The Ackland Motorcycles Co is a defunct British motorcycle manufacturer. The company was founded by ''William Charles Ackland'' (1871-1942) in 1895 and originally manufactured cycles. The company was located on St. Mary's Road in

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

. Ackland's son ''William George Ackland'' (1903-1994) later joined the company.

Motorcycle production

In 1919 Ackland started producing motorcycles. He used proprietary components from suppliers for the hubs,

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

and

gearbox Propulsion transmission is the mode of transmitting and controlling propulsion power of a machine. The term ''transmission'' properly refers to the whole drivetrain, including clutch, gearbox, prop shaft (for rear-wheel drive vehicles), differe ...

. Whilst most similar manufacturers chose

two-stroke engine A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being completed in one revolution of t ...

s from

Villiers Engineering Villiers Engineering was a manufacturer of motorcycles and cycle parts, and an engineering company based in Villiers Street, Wolverhampton, England. Early history In the 1890s John Marston's Sunbeam had become extremely successful by relyin ...

, Ackland used the more expensive, heavy-duty

V-twin A V-twin engine, also called a V2 engine, is a two-cylinder piston engine where the cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. Although widely associated with motorcycles (installed either transversely or longit ...

s from

JA Prestwich Industries JA Prestwich Industries, was a British engineering equipment manufacturing company named after founder John Alfred Prestwich, which was formed in 1951 by the amalgamation of J.A.Prestwich and Company Limited and Pencils Ltd. History John Pres ...

(J.A.P.). Production lasted from 1919 to 1924, although bicycle production continued until 1936. A restored 1922 example is on display at Southampton Museum. This particular machine has a 680 cc JAP engine, a

Sturmey Archer Sturmey-Archer was a manufacturing company originally from Nottingham, England. It primarily produced bicycle hub gears, brakes and a great many other sundry bicycle components, most prominently during their heyday as a subsidiary of the Raleigh ...

3 speed box and

carbide lighting Carbide lamps, or acetylene gas lamps, are simple lamps that produce and burn acetylene (C2H2) which is created by the reaction of calcium carbide (CaC2) with water (H2O). Acetylene gas lamps were used to illuminate buildings, as lighthouse ...

References

Companies based in Southampton Defunct motorcycle manufacturers of the United Kingdom Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of England Vintage vehicles {{motorcycle-stub