The Bond Minicar: The Car That Took Advantage of Britain's Strange Rules

Why would anyone buy a car that couldn't drive backwards? In post-war Britain, a strange little three-wheeler emerged from a workshop in Lancashire. The Bond Minicar had a motorcycle engine, a single front wheel that both drove and steered, and no reverse gear. It was light enough for one person to lift its rear end off the ground. Yet Britain bought them. Families used them, businesses operated their commercial versions, and an enthusiastic owners' club grew around them. Between 1949 and 1966, approximately 24,482 Bond Minicars were built. But what made this unusual machine so appealing? This documentary investigates the story behind the Bond Minicar, from its beginnings with engineer Lawrence 'Lawrie' Bond and the Sharp's Commercials works in Preston, to the unusual driving licence, road tax and purchase tax rules that helped make three-wheeled cars attractive to British buyers. We follow the Minicar's development through its successive models, examine contemporary road tests, discover how the factory eventually found a way to give it reverse, and investigate what happened when the tax advantages that had helped the three-wheeler disappeared. We also look at the changing British motor industry, the rise of competing small cars, and the eventual sale of Bond Cars to Reliant. By 1966, the Minicar had reached the end of its production run. The Preston works would close a few years later. The familiar explanation for the Minicar's success is that it was cheap, economical and benefited from favourable tax rules. But the actual story is more complicated. Not every advantage came from the same regulation, and the absence of reverse gear had a more complicated history than the popular explanation suggests. This is the story of one of Britain's most unusual cars, the people who bought it, the rules that helped it survive, and the changing circumstances that eventually brought its production to an end.