Sharp's Commercials

Sharps Commercials Ltd was a British car maker. It changed its name to Bond Cars Ltd in 1963. The company was taken over by the Reliant Motor Co Ltd of Tamworth, Staffs in February 1969 who eventually closed the Preston factory in August 1970, transferring the spare parts business for the Bond Minicar, 875 saloon, 875 Ranger van and Equipe models to a firm called Bob Joyner & Son in Oldbury in the English Midlands. Reliant nevertheless continued to use the Bond name until 1974 on Bond Bug models made at their own Tamworth plant.

Sharp's Commercials began production of an economical three-wheeled car early in 1949. It was called the "Bond Minicar" (retrospectively to be called the Mark A) and was powered by a single-cylinder two-stroke Villiers engine of 122 or 197 cc. Bodywork was mostly aluminium, though some later models used fibreglass for parts of the car. It proved very popular at the time owing to post-war economies.

The Minicar moved on through several different incarnations, culminating in the "Mark G" in 1961. Convertibles were offered, as were van and estate versions. The engine was upgraded, first to a single-cylinder 250 cc and then to a 250 cc twin-cylinder Villiers 4T (optional on the Mark G). The engines were essentially a Villiers motorcycle-type unit and therefore had no reverse gear. However, this was a minimal inconvenience, because the engine, gearbox and front wheel were mounted as a single unit and could be turned by the steering wheel up to 90 degrees either side of the straight-ahead position, enabling the car to turn within its own length.

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