The company began in 1893 at St Philips, Bristol, as Brazil, Straker & Co. Sidney Straker built steam wagons from 1899, went into partnership with L. R. L. Squire in 1904, and moved in 1907 to a new factory on Lodge Causeway, Fishponds. Its first car, in 1906, was a French Cornilleau-Sainte-Beuve design built under licence, and Straker-Squire went on to build buses on a large scale: by 1909 the Fishponds works supplied 70% of London’s buses.
Its own cars, designed by Roy Fedden, were well regarded. A specially prepared 15 hp took records at Brooklands in 1910, including the flying mile at 95.54 mph, and won its class at hill climbs across Britain. In the First World War Fedden steered the company into aero-engine repair and manufacture, a business taken over by Cosmos Engineering in 1918.
In 1919 all production moved to Edmonton in north London. Alongside the revived 15 hp came the fast six-cylinder 24/90, guaranteed to reach 70 mph and priced at £1,600 at the 1919 Olympia show, of which 67 were built, and finally the lighter 10/20 and 12/20. Car production ended in 1926, and Sidney Straker was killed in a hunting accident soon afterwards.
