Ralph Lucas

Ralph Lucas (1876-1955) was an entrepreneur and inventor, involved in the design and manufacturing of early motor cars.

But by the turn of the century he had established his own workshop (at Westcombe Hill, Greenwich), joining the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in 1903.

[2] At the workshop, he began designing motor cars, registering 15 UK and three US patents between 1899 and 1910 for a range of different engine parts.

The first model was an odd two-stroke car powered by paraffin; it had a piston and a crankshaft at either end of its one cylinder.

[2] The car was test driven for an article in The Engineer journal which reported, 'On the high gear the car travelled up long and steep gradients without necessitating change to the low gear’ it wrote, hailing the vehicle as ‘a highly meritorious attempt to adapt a two-cycle internal combustion engine to the propulsion of road vehicles.’[4] In 1922 Ralph Lucas developed a second car, the North-Lucas Radial, with Oliver North at the Robin Hood Engineering Works in Putney Vale.