Cousins Frank and Ailwyn Smith founded Clyno in Thrapston, Northamptonshire, in 1909, naming it after the “inclined” adjustable pulley they made for belt-driven motorcycles. In 1910 they bought a factory in Wolverhampton, and their motorcycles made their name in trials. In the First World War Clyno supplied the army’s machine-gun motorcycle combinations, a choice said to have been made by Winston Churchill, but the company went into liquidation in 1920.
Frank Smith revived it in 1922 as a car maker. The Clyno 10.8, with a Coventry Climax engine, was renowned for reliability and economy, and about 35,000 were made. Clyno kept cutting prices, sales soared, and at its 1926 peak the company was building 350 cars a week, making it Britain’s third-largest car maker. It opened a large new plant at Bushbury.
But Clyno was under-capitalised and its models were ageing. Its answer to the Morris Minor, the Century of 1928, was priced at about £112 and so cheaply built that it was nicknamed the “Cemetery”. Only about 300 were made, a receiver was appointed in February 1929, and the company was wound up that September. The design for its Nine was taken to fellow Wolverhampton maker AJS.
