Condor (Coventry)

Condor (Coventry) identifies the Condor Motor Co. of Broad Street Garage, Coventry, and is qualified to prevent confusion with Switzerland's long-lived Condor-Werke, London's postwar Condor Cycles, Harry S. Roberts's earlier Royal Condor motor bicycle and unrelated aircraft, automobile-model and commercial names. Coventry directories list Condor Motor Co. as a motorcycle manufacturer at 142 and 144 Broad Street in 1912–13, while another period directory gives 182 Broad Street and describes it more broadly as a motor manufacturer; Condor Engines also appears among accessory makers. The company built heavy-duty single-cylinder motorcycles from about 1907 to 1914. A 4½ hp, approximately 650 cc single represented the earlier range, and an 810 cc single was available by 1912. Condor also supplied engines to other manufacturers, including Aurora and possibly Excelsior. The automobile connection is a single, remarkable three-wheel cyclecar built in 1913. Surviving summaries say it steered at both the front and rear and used a single driven wheel positioned on the left. That description is sufficiently distinctive to establish one separate road-vehicle family, but it does not safely establish the complete wheel geometry, seating or control mechanism. A modern informal identification associates a photographed Condor with an 810 cc engine, yet accessible historical text does not explicitly assign the company's contemporary 810 cc motorcycle engine to the cyclecar. The catalog therefore leaves displacement and output unresolved rather than laundering proximity into fact. No factory model name, brochure, gearbox, clutch, final drive, brakes, suspension, wheelbase, dimensions, weight, price, top speed, production quantity, serial range or authenticated survivor register has been recovered. One Three-Wheel Cyclecar row exhausts Condor's automobile range. The motorcycles and supplied engines remain essential company history but are not counted as automobile models. The earlier 1902–03 Royal Condor was Harry S. Roberts's Deanshanger Minerva-powered motor bicycle and is not treated as a predecessor product of Condor Motor Co. without evidence of corporate continuity.

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