The BSA Bantam Bible

Book excerpt: Year-by-year evolution of the BSA Bantam, a simple commuter bike that thousands learnt to ride on. It became the standard GPO ‘telegram bike’ in the 1950s and was a huge success, with 100,000 built in the first four years of production. It’s a story with interesting asides, like the Hummer, Harley-Davidson’s version of the DKW that inspired the Bantam, and survived into the 1960s. But it’s a sad story too – BSA failed to follow up the Bantam’s early success by developing it, and by the mid-1960s it was looking outdated, especially next to the new breed of four-stroke Hondas. That the Bantam was allowed to fizzle out in 1971 symbolised the state of the industry that produced it, but today there’s a thriving community of Bantam owner/riders. The book ends with a guide to buying a secondhand Bantam, along with useful appendices on specifications, engine/frame numbers, and contacts among the clubs and Bantam specialists. Every Bantam owner, or would be owner, needs this book - the Bantam Bible!