9781422270363

Starley & Co. Ltd. and began the next phase of company development—its first motorized form of transportation. Starley began experimenting with Peugeot motorcycles, reverse engineering the French manufacturer’s design. He outfitted one of his Rover bicycles with a Peugeot engine and started work on his first motorcycle designs. Becoming The Rover Company Starley changed the company’s name to reflect its expanded transportation focus in the late 1890s. It became The Rover Company and planned to release Starley’s motorcycle design. The next innovation was cut short, however, when Starley died unexpectedly on October 29, 1901, at the age of 46. His company carried on though, with colleague Henry John “Harry” Lawson and Rover’s managing director Harry Smyth taking the helm. By 1904, Great Britain’s Rover Company produced bicycles and motorcycles and debuted its first automobile, the Rover Eight, which it produced until 1912. From 1906 to 1910, the company manufactured the Rover 6, too. It briefly added the Rover 10/12

A 500 cc Rover motorcycle from the 1920s.

Introduction

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