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Reliant Motor Company.

The "Reliant" and the Reliant Regent.

In 1934 the Raleigh Cycle Company decided to discontinue the manufacture of their 3-wheeled vehicles and their Works Manager; T.L. Williams disagreed that 3-wheelers had a poor future and after being joined by Mr Thompson (also from Raleigh) they decided to build their own vehicle William's back garden at Kettlebrook, Tamworth in 1934. The design resembled very closely the Raleigh Karryall van and was originally powered by an Austin Seven engine. The van was a 7cwt van which was basically a motorcycle enclosed with a van body.  As Williams had used many Raleigh parts some of them were stamped with the letter R and so the name Reliant was conceived to match the initial. On June 3rd 1935, the first 'Reliant' was delivered but the Reliant was underpowered and as a result was uprated in March 1936 to a twin cylinder water-cooled J.A.P. engine. (A few Reliant prototypes were also built using Morris 8 engines.)

The Reliant Regent. (My thanks to Thomas Touw for this photograph)

In 1937 the capacity of the Reliant was increased to 10cwt and Reliant started to use the four-cylinder Austin Engine but in 1938  Austin announced that they planned to stop the production of this engine, and so, it was decided that Reliant would make their own aluminium copy of the Austin engine, which was completed in 1940.

With the onset of the Second World War Reliant turned to machining parts for the war effort and continued to build 3-wheelers afterwards  with a slightly modified van called the Reliant Regent, the first one being completed on March 13th 1946.  The 1950's version of the van was equipped with a few more luxuries that included sliding windows in the doors rather than canvas side screens. A larger 12cwt Regent and Prince Regent was also produced. Production of the Regent continued until 1954 when Reliant produced their first 3-wheeled car the Reliant Regal.

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