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Reliant was a British car manufacturer. The company was traditionally based at Tamworth in Staffordshire. Reliant was mainly known for producing the 3-wheeled Reliant Robin, but in fact produced a variety of different vehicles during a production run of over 60 years, including popular sports cars, convertibles and commercial vehicles. Around 1 to 2 million Reliant vehicles were produced, and were sold in at least 9 countries. For a period from the 1970s to the 1990s, Reliant was the UK's biggest British-owned car manufacturer. == Origins == When the Raleigh Bicycle Company decided to discontinue the manufacture of their three-wheeled vehicles in 1934, their Works Manager Mr T. L. Williams and a colleague, Mr E. S. Thompson, felt that the days of lightweight three-wheelers were not over. They decided to build their own vehicle in Williams's back garden at Kettlebrook, Tamworth. The homebuilt design closely resembled the Karryall van previously built by Raleigh, and the prototype was licensed in January 1935.〔 It was a 7 cwt (356 kg) van with a steel chassis, powered by a 750 cc V-twin engine driving the rear wheels through a 3-speed gearbox and shaft drive. The body was a hardwood frame with aluminium panels attached to it, in the traditional manner of the time. With the obvious motorcycle front end, mounted in the open, in front of the bulkhead, it was essentially a motorcycle fitted with a box body. From building vehicles at home, the work moved to a disused bus depot on Watling Street in Fazeley. June 3, 1935, saw delivery of the first Reliant. Powered by a single-cylinder air-cooled 600cc J.A.P. engine, the driver sat centrally on the vehicle astride the engine, much like a motorcyclist. The single-cylinder engine left the Reliant underpowered. March 1936 saw an update to a two-cylinder water-cooled J.A.P. engine and an increase to 8 cwt (407 kg) gross vehicle weight (gvw). The driver no longer sat astride the engine and the vehicle gained more conventional forward-facing seats in the front. The first improved 8cwt twin cylinder model was delivered on March 16, 1936. In 1936, British finance minister Neville Chamberlain abolished (as it turned out, only temporarily) the "road fund licence", an annual car tax which had not been applied to three-wheelers and which had therefore conferred a major competitive advantage on Reliant's "three-wheeled motor goods vehicle".〔 This did not dissuade the engineers at Reliant. In 1938 the Reliant Motor Company started to use the 747cc four-cylinder 7 hp Austin side-valve engine as found in the popular Austin Seven. The first four-cylinder Reliant was delivered on March 12, 1938. The Austin Car Company then announced their intention to cease production of the 747cc Austin Seven engine. Williams was always enthusiastic about Reliant being as self-reliant as possible. He was keen that the company did not buy parts which it could make ‘in-house'. Reliant therefore commenced manufacture of their own engine, which was essentially a copy of the Austin product. Although appearing very similar to the Austin engine, the level of commonality between Reliant and Austin remains unclear; the Reliant side-valve engine was a 747cc four-cylinder unit built using smaller-scale manufacturing techniques than Austin. The Reliant crankcase was sand-cast rather than die-cast. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Reliant」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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