Buckler Cars built lightweight spaceframe chassis and kits for road, rally and racing specials from a converted works in Reading, Berkshire. Founded by Derek Buckler in 1947, it built around 400 cars before competition and changing tastes ended production in the 1960s.
Buckler Cars was founded in Reading, Berkshire, in 1947 by Chadwick Derek Buckler, known as Derek Buckler, who had run a precision motor engineering works at 67 Caversham Road, since 1939. The company later took over the works of Welco Farm Implements Ltd at Crowthorne, Berkshire, and used that site alongside its Reading base.
Buckler designed and built lightweight spaceframe chassis, sold complete, part-built or as bare kits for buyers to fit their own bodywork and running gear. Its cars were popular for road use, club rallies, trials,speed hill-climbs and racing in the early-to-mid 1950s, and the company also supplied gear sets and racing chassis to other builders including Lotus. Around 400 Buckler cars were made in total.
As larger manufacturers began competing more directly in the specialist and kit car market, Buckler’s popularity declined through the later 1950s. Derek Buckler sold the carcompany at Crowthorne in 1962 to Mike Luff and Frank Fletcher, and it found a further period of success making go-karts, before finally closing in the late 1960s.
