Description

The Berkeley was a very popular British sports car. Its constructor, Laurie Bond was one of the more successful designers of mini cars in England. In the 40's, Bond raced successfully in a mountain race and decided to create a light 2-seat roadster with a fiberglass body, a 2-stroke motor and front-wheel drive. In 1956 he joined with Charles Panter, owner of Europe's largest manufacturer of caravans, who wanted to offset seasonal sales variations by producing a car.

Production began with 3 prototypes, the bodies of which were made of two plastic parts, with a box-shaped substructure and suspension and engine compartment reinforced with aluminum, forming a fiberglass monocoque structure. The headlights were under plexiglass covers. The first Berkeleys, the B60s, were 4-wheelers and had 322cc Anzani 2-stroke, 2-cylinder motors with 15 horsepower and chain drive to the front wheels. These in turn were hung on A-arms, suspended by Girling coil-and-damper units. At the rear there were swing axles, with struts. It was named B60 for its top speed, and the B65, with 328cc Excelsior motor, soon followed. A 492cc version was created by the addition of a third cylinder. Production was stopped by the arrival of the Austin Healey Sprite.

When production resumed, the B65 had become the T60, a 3-wheeler, able to be driven on a motorcycle license. The slightly longer body had a bit of room behind the front seats and very rare T60/4 (only 40 made) had actual child seats over the rear wheel. The 3-wheelers were a great success, and were produced in the largest numbers.

Manufacturer: Berkeley Ltd. Biggleswade England

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This was one of the vehicles sold at the Bruce Weiner Microcar Auction in February 2013. Website owner Harry Kraemer has all of the sale data from that auction in his Market Watch section of his Wheels & Wings site Flymall.org. See link below for the data.

Click here for auction sale report