I saw one of these the other day and spoke to the owner. I told him 'My brother had one of these' (So did my brother in law...). If you're my sort of age, your father might have had a BSA Bantam. You, or a sibling, might have had a 'sports moped' - most likely an FS1-E, or one of its Austrian, Japanese or Italian competitors.
1974 Yamaha FS1-E. The colour that year was called 'Popsicle Purple'...
Let's go back to 1971. The UK Government of the day raised the age for riding 'proper' motorcycles from sixteen to seventeen in December of that year. That left aspiring motorcyclists who had yet to reach that age with the prospect of 'Mopeds' - Raleigh Wisps, Puch Maxis, Mobylettes and the like, with pedals and CVT transmissions - really just motorised bicycles. But all the law said was: You're limited to 50cc, no limit on the horsepower, but you have to have pedals.
Detail with folding pedals and kick start.
Over the following year, a number of manufacturers from various countries (which notably excluded Britain) introduced 'sports mopeds' onto the UK market. These were basically lightweight motorcycles (and more powerful than old-school mopeds) with pedals - in the case of the Yamaha, these could be folded to act as footrests and never used - after all, you had a kick starter. You could pedal an FS1-E but you were better off not trying. If you ran out of fuel, it was easier to push it!
49cc, 4.8bhp @7,000rpm. The canister above the engine is the air cleaner. The 'E' in the name stood for 'England', a specific UK-market version with pedals.
The 80mph speedometer is a little optimistic - the FS1-E was good for 45mph - 'fifty downhill with the wind behind you'.
Austrian rival - the Puch VS50, 3.25bhp @ 6,000rpm
Market overview with prices: FS1-E and rivals - June 1973 (Source - 'Drive', the Automobile Association magazine)
In 1977, the maximum speed for mopeds was limited to 30mph, which diminished their appeal somewhat. Surviving machines from the early to mid Seventies are quite sought after...
I must have preceded the law change by no more than a year then!
My first bike, indeed first vehicle, was a BSA 'Star' 250cc single: the maximum capacity for a learner up till that change.
I think I managed 60mph on it one day but it frightened me (and probably, it) so I rarely exceeded about 50 after that.
It had high bars, and I vaguely customised it with a home-made, high-backed seat of no excessive comfort, and forward foot-controls.
The first Fantic 'Chopper' I saw was in a motorcycle dealer's showroom. As it was on its own, initially I thought it a genuine custom bike; not a production vehicle pretending to be a proper chopper. I don't think they were around for long.
At about the same time, a local motor-scooter enthusiast was happily customising second-hand Lambretta scooters. He called his own "Lamb Chop". I don't know how many he made or sold.
It was also roughly the era of the Sharps Commercials' "Bond Bug" three-wheeler, a fun two-seater of a distinctive wedge shape, very different from the manufacturers' previous range of "Bond Minicar" 3-wheelers.
I'm trying to remember the make of the yellow 3-wheeler, which at least had the more stable configutation with the single wheel at the rear. Is it an Isetta? It has a single door, the entire front panel hinged on one side.
This is a Bond "Minicar": I had an 'Estate' version with the roof height continued to the back. It was powered by a Villiers 2-stroke motocycle engine and gearbox, available in 200cc and heady 250cc versions..
@ArishMell That's an Isetta, an Italian design adopted by BMW as a stepping stone into the mass market. You can see the round BMW badge on the front. There was a similar vehicle with a front opening door made my Heinkel, which was also known as the Trojan, recongnisable by its headlights incorporated into the front wings rather than in separate nacelles.
A former near-neighbour had one of those very low-slung Messerschmidts, wrongly reputed to use war-surplus Me-109 cockpit canopies. They were probably very stable but rather alarming to use in heavy traffic because the two fore-and-aft seats were so near the ground. As I recall you entered it aircraft-style by lifting the canopy and stepping over the bulwark.
I think a few other makes of light three-wheelers came and went quite rapidly in the 1940s-50s, leaving few survivors in preservation.
I used to know a Reliant enthusiast whose van puzzled others because the front grille's details did not match the vehicle's age shown by the registration-number. He had bought it quite cheaply because a collision had badly damaged the original front end, but it being fibre-glass made it easy for him to find a replacement front panel in a scrap-yard, and graft it on. The donor was younger but the main profile was identical!
Never a motorcycle man myself, but I can appreciate the aesthetics of these lovely bikes. I can remember some of my friends drooling over the prospect of getting their first bike and impressing the chicks or birds (I can't remember which we called them back then 😄). In fact, I think it was their mates who were more likely to be impressed than any potential gf.
I’m in the US. I worked for a BSA, Yamaha dealer in the 60’s and 70’s when those were new. Yamaha was not into mopeds at the time. But we had the YG1, it was similar but 80 cc’s and no pedals.
@jackson55 I can see what you mean! The style and general architecture of the YG1 looks a lot like the FS1-E. All Yamaha had to do to cash in on the 'sports moped' thing was to adapt what they were doing already, and make a 50cc machine with 'pedals'. Those were just there to satisfy the quirks of UK legislation. I have a feeling that the people who drafted the law in 1971 had no inkling of what was going to happen...
