1914-1918 Clyno Machine Gun 750cc Sidecar Motorcycle V-Twin

Aggresive looking as it us, you may imagine this machine roaring into action with its machine gun blazing, but in actual service in World War 1, it was not like that. A sidecar outfit was not a stable platform for a machine gun and in use it was lifted from the sidecar chassis and set up on its own tripod mount hopefully behind some natural cover.

The motorcycle is basically the 1914 Clyno passenger outfit with its 750cc engine made by Stevens brother of Wolverhampton who manufactured their better know AKS motorcycles. The heavyweight 3 speed gearbox and clutch, which looks hefty enough for a tractor, was made by Clyno. The Clyno was chosen frm one or two other makes for its fighting role by none other than a young Winston Churchill.

Water cooled Scott two stroke twins were selected, not surprisingly, for desert warfare in the Middle East though a more scientific cross between a sidecar outfit and a light car evolved by Scott was turned down. The public also turned it down claiming it was a crab because of its odd appearance when offered for passenger use after the war.

The story of the Clyno concern was one of tremendous growth and sudden collapse. It began with a veteran engine belt drive pulley with inclined flanges made in Northamptonshire by by brothers Frank and Alwyn Smith and led to them making Clyno motorcycles and moving into the Stevens factory in Wolverhampton when more space was needed for AJS motorcycles. War Office contracts for several hundred of these gun ships helped to make them a major manufacturer.

Post War ambition led the Smith brothers to branch out into making a Clyno car and abandoning motorcycles. It was their undoing for they became locked in a head opn battle for the mass market with William Morris and his Morris Oxfords and Cowleys, they lost.