Cumbria

Cumbria was the marque of Cumbria Motors Limited, a very short-lived British cyclecar concern associated with Cockermouth in the historic county of Cumberland. AllCarIndex and several compiled manufacturer lists date the concern to 1913–14, while the strongest directly recovered records are all from 1914. Kelly's Directory of Cumberland and Westmorland for that year lists Cumbria Motors Limited among Cockermouth businesses and explicitly calls it a cycle-car manufacturer. This contemporary directory evidence distinguishes the company from later motor dealers and from businesses merely located in the modern ceremonial county of Cumbria. No dependable founder, capitalization record, incorporation date, workforce total or earlier engineering predecessor has been recovered, so those details are not invented. The first detailed vehicle report found is The Motor of 20 January 1914. It illustrated a neat open Cumbria light car, gave a complete price of £160 and directed enquiries to Cumbria Motors Ltd, 13 London Road, Coventry. The article described a front-mounted water-cooled four-cylinder engine with thermosiphon circulation, enclosed valves, automatic lubrication, magneto ignition and a Zenith carburettor, driving through a leather-faced cone clutch, three forward speeds, separately selected reverse, cardan shaft and bevel gearing. Standard automobile references identify this as the 10/12 HP and add a 1,110 cc displacement and 2,438 mm wheelbase. The Coventry contact must not be silently treated as proof that the Cockermouth factory relocated: the recovered source does not say whether it was a registered office, sales address, agent or temporary base. By spring the smaller Cumbria monocar was the clearly established production vehicle. The Light Car and Cyclecar tested the new monocar in its 20 April issue. A reader responding on 11 May reported a substantial run in a car that had left the works only three or four days earlier. He praised its acceleration, hill ability, easy driving and springing and said he rode 60–70 miles comfortably in its dickey seat. In the same 11 May issue, a northern factory survey illustrated the Cockermouth works, called the Cumbria a well-known monocar and said the factory was producing it. Standard reference works name it the 8/10 HP, specify a 2,286 mm wheelbase and report closely related 964 and 995 cc V-twin forms. Those capacities are variants of one chassis family, not two manufactured model identities. Accessible period reports do not establish the V-twin supplier, cooling method, gearbox, final drive, price, overall dimensions or a reliable performance figure, so later unsourced repetitions are not promoted into specifications. The larger four-cylinder car receives a separate row because its engine architecture, wheelbase and conventional shaft-drive transmission were materially different. Its production status is qualified rather than exaggerated. Although The Motor photographed, specified and priced a complete car in January, the Cockermouth factory report of 11 May said it was producing a monocar and would very likely make a light car later. That wording supports an announced, completed and marketed 10/12 HP but does not prove an established customer series. No production ledger, chassis range, registration census, model allocation or confirmed survivor has been found for either vehicle. The resulting two-record taxonomy therefore captures all defensible Cumbria automobiles without turning the two reported V-twin displacements into duplicate models or claiming unproved light-car deliveries. Accounts consistently end the venture in 1914, with the First World War terminating its brief activity; no substantiated successor or postwar revival is known. The present-day Dobies Cumbria Motors Limited, established from a repair business in 1973, is unrelated and does not continue this marque. No Cumbria-badged motorcycle, commercial vehicle or additional passenger model is established by the recovered evidence.

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