Osborn Engineering Company

The Osborn Engineering Company went into receivership in 1931, and the extensive premises at Lees Lane, Gosport were auctioned by the receiver on 17 December 1931.

In 1920 they advertised a diverse range of service from their 2-acre factory, including plating, enamelling, turning, milling, grinding, gear cutting, hardening, press work, sand blasting, smith's work and they claimed 20 years experience in automobile manufacture and also that they are the maker of the "Blackburne" motorcycle.

[7] In March 1921 a similar advert stated they made the Blackburne Motorcycle, the Sirron Light Chassis, and Motor Bodies of all types for the Fiat Company.

At the 1929 Olympia show Osborn Engineering Company listed 350cc and 500cc motorcycles, in either side-valve or overhead-valve form, all with the unusual duplex fork arrangement.

Ltd of Atlanta Works, Highbury Street, Portsmouth, and in 1934 in addition to motorcycles it announced a very unusual vehicle - the two wheel car.

This was the brainchild of Mr Norman Frederick Wood, designer and director - and was in effect a motorcycle enclosed completely in a slender car type body with wheel steering, and tandem seating for two.

The most famous model produced by the firm was the OEC Commander introduced in 1938, with a 500 cc single-cylinder Matchless engine, Girling brakes, sprung frame and duplex steering plus a claimed top speed of 80 mph.

[14] During WW2 the works changed over to manufacturing aircraft undercarriage parts, however it was also involved with the rather strange and unsuccessful secret weapon known as the Great Panjandrum[12] which will be familiar to devotees of "Dad's Army" as an imitation of it featured in an episode in 1972.

Using a 996cc JAP engine in the OEC frame he gained the world speed record at Arpajon in France in 1926 at 121.44 mph.

On 31 August 1930 a motorcycle with a special OEC frame - the OEC-Temple-JAP - ridden by Joe Wright gained the world speed record at Arpajon, France, at 137.32 mph.