In 1933 Hadfield re-launched the company as Beans Industries, making components for other motor vehicle manufacturers.

[2] In First World War Bean prospered from military contracts to supply shrapnel and shell cases to the government.

After the war George Bean was knighted for his wartime service and his son Jack was made a CBE.

It set up a new factory in Hurst Lane, Coseley, to make the chassis, which were then driven to Dudley where the company's Waddams Pool works built the bodies.

[5] Jack Harper Bean was managing director of the company and he visited America in order to buy the latest machinery for car-making.

[note 1] After investment in the above companies the balance of the new capital would be used to: Distribution was intended to be carried out through British Motor Trading which belonged to the Automobile Association's Motor Union Insurance[7] Initial plans called for annual production levels of 50,000 small cars together with 25,000 medium size cars and a further 25,000 lorries or commercial vehicles.

[9] The new company wanted to emulate the success of the Ford Model T and exhibited its first car at the 1919 Motor Show.

[3] In November 1921 Sir George Bean, Barclays Bank, the National Provincial Bank and Hadfields rescued the company with a huge sum[clarification needed] by buying a controlling interest in A Harper, Sons & Bean and paid off its creditors.

[citation needed] In 1924 the company launched a smaller Bean 12 and also began making light commercial vehicles.

Also in 1924 Sir George Bean died aged 68 and was succeeded as chairman by Major Augustus Clerke who had previously been managing director of Hadfields.

[12] But A Harper, Sons & Bean was still short of money with debts of £1.8 million, mainly as a result of its restructuring in 1921.

In November 1924, partly to maintain production volumes, Bean added a 20/25 cwt lorry to its range.

[1] The original truck was based on a Bean car, but in 1927 the company launched a larger model with a commercial chassis and a capacity of 30 cwt (about 1,500 kg).

In the 1980s the Margaret Thatcher in her third ministry broke up British Leyland and in 1988 Bean was bought by its management team.

The order book almost doubled in twelve months but appalling mismanagement led to increasing and unsustainable losses, the company was put in administration and as the administrators could not sell it as a going concern the factory ceased production in August 2005 and closed within six months.

[2] Australian adventurer Francis Birtles made a number of epic and record-breaking journeys in a two-seat Bean 14 HP called the Sundowner.

In September 1926 Birtles and co-driver Alec Barlow drove it 3,400 miles (5,500 km) from Darwin to Melbourne.

Then from October 1927 to July 1928 Birtles drove the car solo 16,000 miles (26,000 km) from London to Melbourne.

[16] The Coseley factory also made Captain George Eyston's world-land-speed-record car Thunderbolt, which took the record in 1937.

The car is now in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery's Dollman Street store, which is only occasionally open to the public.