BSA Bantam All Models 1948-1971 Book by Roy Bacon #876

BSA  Bantam all Models  1948-1971   Book by Roy Bacon.  Published in the United Kingdom in 1990.  Hard cover,  48 pages.  New.  #E13X4/A876/B

The BSA Bantam was built from 1948-1971 in 123, 148 and 172 cc capacities, with a variety of cycle parts, and for road, competition and trail use.  It was possibly the most successful British machine of all time in terms of numbers built and served its owners, many of them learners and commuters, well, despite some weaknesses.

Yet the Bantam was not a BSA design at all but was based on the pre-war DKW RT125, which had been taken over as part of the war reparations.  That DKW layout was also used by the American Harley-Davidson, Russian Voskhod and Japanese Yamaha, so was highly regarded worldwide, while DKW themselves kept on with it in their post-war range, but in a new plant in West Germany.  Their old factory at Zschopau lay in the East and was renamed IFA, and then MZ, but it continued to build models based on the old RT125 for many a year.  Truly a universal motorcycle.