Beardmore — every.autos

Scottish engineering-group automobile marque spanning advanced private cars and seven generations of purpose-built London taxis

BE Identity / Register monogram

15models on record

1919–1966recorded span

Model activity by decade

1910s1950s

2 limited editions

0 total units across the few-off lineage

All limited editions →

About the marque

Founded: 1919 – 1966
Country: United Kingdom

Heavy-engineering conglomerate William Beardmore & Company created Beardmore Motors Limited in 1919, drawing on factories at Anniesland, Coatbridge and Paisley. Its first private car was the overhead-camshaft 11.4, followed by the enlarged 12/30, certified-at-Brooklands Super Sports, large Thirty and side-valve 14/40 and 16/40. Passenger cars faded by 1929, but the parallel London taxi business endured. Seven retrospectively numbered generations evolved from the exceptionally durable Paisley Mk1 through the lighter Hyper and Hendon Paramount/Ace series. After wartime interruption and a period distributing the Nuffield Oxford, Beardmore returned in 1954 with the Ford- or Perkins-powered Mk7 Paramount. Windover, Weymann and MCW successively built the final cab until late 1966. Beardmore Precision motorcycles were a distinct licensed product identity and are excluded from this automobile history.

Text adapted from “Beardmore” on Wikipedia ↗ · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗

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Catalog

15 models

1919–1923

11.4

First Beardmore passenger car, shown at Olympia in 1919. Its original shaft-driven camshaft proved troublesome and was replaced by chain drive before…

CURATED

1919–1923

Country and Colonial

Private and export passenger version of the original Mk1 taxi chassis, intended for difficult roads across overseas markets.

CURATED

1919–1923

Light Van

Commercial derivative of the Mk1 taxi platform. Sources confirm the body class but preserve no distinct type number, payload, dimensions or build…

CURATED

1919–1923

Taxi Mk1

Introduced at Paisley in 1919 as London's first new taxicab design after the First World War and later called the Mk1 retrospectively. It was built…

Large Coatbridge-built four-cylinder model. Despite its Thirty name it was described as a 20 hp car; poor demand ended the line quickly and no…

CURATED

1923–1925

12/30

June 1923 enlargement and renaming of the 11.4, normally paired with a four-speed manual gearbox. Surviving references give some conflicting…

£750 sporting derivative supplied with a certificate confirming a 70 mph Brooklands lap. A highly modified two-litre version broke the Shelsley Walsh…

CURATED

c. 1923–1926

Taxi Mk2

All-new 1923 chassis replacing Mk1 and shared with Beardmore light trucks and buses. Its end year is bounded by the subsequent…

CURATED

1924–1925

14/40

Paisley-built replacement after Anniesland production wound down. It introduced the side-valve engine and standard Stewart and Lomond closed bodies…

CURATED

1925–1929

16/40

Enlarged continuation of the 14/40 and Beardmore's final private-car line. It remained briefly as the sole non-taxi model before passenger-car…

CURATED

c. 1926–1931

Taxi Mk3 Hyper

Lighter, more economical response to revised London Conditions of Fitness and the basis from which the later Paramount was updated.

CURATED

1932–1934

Taxi Mk4 Paramount

First Hendon-built Paramount, essentially an updated Hyper using Commer engine and transmission after Beardmore Motors became director-owned.

CURATED

1935–1937

Taxi Mk5 Paramount Ace

Longer-wheelbase Paramount Ace introduced for 1935 while retaining the Mk4's Commer powertrain.

CURATED

c. 1938–1939

Taxi Mk6 Ace

Detail-refined final prewar Ace. Beardmore stopped cab manufacture during the war and subsequently distributed the Nuffield Oxford before returning…

CURATED

1954–1966

Taxi Mk7 Paramount

Final Beardmore taxi, with aluminium panels over ash framing and three- or four-speed Ford transmission. Windover, Weymann and finally MCW built it;…

650 builtCURATED