Unable to track down a surviving example of his great grandfather’s revolutionary motorcycle, Mark Wardill is reviving classic engineering with the help of Welsh craftsmanship. By Alex Grant.
For all the connections that the information age can forge, perhaps the most powerful are with the past. That ever-expanding pool of knowledge can reveal family history that puts locations, relationships and character traits into context. But, for Mark Wardill, it began a five-year journey which would resurrect a century-old motorcycle company at his home in Church Village.
“I’ve always known my great grandfather, Percy, had designed a bike, but nobody in the family really knew anything about it,” he explains. “All we had were these two glass slides, and if you held them up to the light you could see one of them had ‘Wardill’ written on the fuel tank. So I wanted to find out about it, from a family history point of view, and I started documenting it on Instagram. My hope was that someone, somewhere, must have had one of these bikes.”
The venture had been relatively short-lived, but noteworthy with it. A relative within another branch of the family had set up a website about the Wardills’ bicycle repair shop in Carshalton, and how Percy and his brother Ernest had spent the mid to late1920s developing and testing prototype motorcycles with a novel engine design. That valveless, supercharged two-stroke unit had attracted plenty of press attention – and 90 years later, it had Mark’s attention too.
“Loads of results came up when I typed ‘Wardill’ into the Patent Office website, including two about this engine. It had a central piston with an annular ‘donut’ piston wrapped around the outside that had two conrods on a crank. This would compress the air and fuel mixture – which is where the supercharged element comes from – and push it into the central firing piston. It was totally different design,” he says.
It was also incredibly rare. Financial records from the National Archives showed five engines had been built but couldn’t shed any light on where they had ended up. Calls to transport museums also threw up few leads, but uncovered articles suggesting one of the prototypes won a gold medal during London to Exeter trials, and the brothers had used Brooklands for testing. Archives at the track backed this up, but with an added challenge. The Wardill 3 – the first bike using the company’s own frame design – had been crashed by the test driver ahead of a demonstration to investors. The chances of finding another would be slim.
Unless, of course, you built one yourself. Mark recalls: “With the information I had available, I decided to build a tribute. I had the picture of the bike, and I knew it had a 26-inch wheel and tyre combination. So I had the photo printed at 1:1 scale and sellotaped it to my garage wall, then researched the engines I could buy. When I placed the engine on wooden blocks in front of the picture, it fitted within the frame, and I realised I could replicate my great grandfather’s bike.”
“Loads of results came up when I typed ‘Wardill’ into the Patent Office website, including two about this engine. It had a central piston with an annular ‘donut’ piston wrapped around the outside that had two conrods on a crank. This would compress the air and fuel mixture – which is where the supercharged element comes from – and push it into the central firing piston. It was totally different design,” he says.
It was also incredibly rare. Financial records from the National Archives showed five engines had been built but couldn’t shed any light on where they had ended up. Calls to transport museums also threw up few leads, but uncovered articles suggesting one of the prototypes won a gold medal during London to Exeter trials, and the brothers had used Brooklands for testing. Archives at the track backed this up, but with an added challenge. The Wardill 3 – the first bike using the company’s own frame design – had been crashed by the test driver ahead of a demonstration to investors. The chances of finding another would be slim.
Unless, of course, you built one yourself. Mark recalls: “With the information I had available, I decided to build a tribute. I had the picture of the bike, and I knew it had a 26-inch wheel and tyre combination. So I had the photo printed at 1:1 scale and sellotaped it to my garage wall, then researched the engines I could buy. When I placed the engine on wooden blocks in front of the picture, it fitted within the frame, and I realised I could replicate my great grandfather’s bike.”
Within two years, a quest for family history had evolved into a registered motorcycle and clothing brand based on the logo from the glass slide, and work was underway on a prototype bike. The Wardill 4 picks up the legacy where its predecessors left off; it’s a homage to the bike wrecked at Brooklands, based on the brothers’ frame design and assembled from the same components where regulations allow. A process which, for now, means its 18hp comes from a modern 250cc four-stroke engine instead of the Wardills’ supercharged two.
This turned out to be one of the few components that couldn’t be sourced locally. The bespoke instruments are from world-renowned manufacturer Smiths, based in Neath. Its aluminium fuel tank is hand-formed in Tenby using a wooden buck made by Mark’s carpenter father and pinstriped by an expert in pub signs based in Abergavenny. Even the frame is hand-formed and tig welded in Ferndale, blending 90-year-old design with an injection of modern technology.
“I want to be like the Morgan Motor Company of the motorcycle world. There’s a lot of craftsmanship gone into the bike and I’ve kept as much of that as I can in Wales. With these crafts, if no one's using them, they're not going to be doing the stuff they do,” Mark continues.
“Although it’s quite a basic looking bike, every single part is designed in CAD, and it was put through finite element analysis at the University of South Wales [using computer simulation] to ensure it's structurally sound. So if I want anything, I send an e-mail to the company that has all the files, they fabricate it and send it to me. That’s what I’ll be doing.”
This turned out to be one of the few components that couldn’t be sourced locally. The bespoke instruments are from world-renowned manufacturer Smiths, based in Neath. Its aluminium fuel tank is hand-formed in Tenby using a wooden buck made by Mark’s carpenter father and pinstriped by an expert in pub signs based in Abergavenny. Even the frame is hand-formed and tig welded in Ferndale, blending 90-year-old design with an injection of modern technology.
“I want to be like the Morgan Motor Company of the motorcycle world. There’s a lot of craftsmanship gone into the bike and I’ve kept as much of that as I can in Wales. With these crafts, if no one's using them, they're not going to be doing the stuff they do,” Mark continues.
“Although it’s quite a basic looking bike, every single part is designed in CAD, and it was put through finite element analysis at the University of South Wales [using computer simulation] to ensure it's structurally sound. So if I want anything, I send an e-mail to the company that has all the files, they fabricate it and send it to me. That’s what I’ll be doing.”
Registering that first prototype at the start of 2020 proved easier than expected. Each bike is put through a single vehicle approval process, which means there’s no need to compromise the aesthetics or riding experience with new technology, and Mark was able to carry out subsequent road testing himself. It’s testament to the meticulous nature of the build that the first production version is almost identical to the prototype – differentiated only by slight alterations to hide the wiring and subtle changes to the switchgear and pegs.
“Some people will build prototypes, then they want to change something, so they start again and they never finish the bikes. Whereas I wanted to get right to the end; to get it road legal, to ride it and see what breaks, see what I don’t like and go from there. From an engineering of view, nothing really changed,” he recalls.
“At the start, I could have gone and had a massive loan or found some investors, but I wanted to enjoy the whole process and not have deadlines or bills to pay. One week my guy who did all the engineering for me would say he needed a headlight, so I'd go out and find a headlight. A week later he’d need foot pegs, so I'd find the foot pegs. I could take time, do it slowly and let it evolve.”
That evolution hasn’t strayed too far from Percy’s and Ernest’s ideas. Modern regulations required a foot-operated gearchange – which avoids taking hands off the handlebars – but the experience would otherwise have felt familiar. The bike runs an adjustable Hollis girder fork at the front and hardtail with a sprung seat; a 1920s throwback, without the associated ownership challenges.
“It's a thinker's bike,” says Mark. “I wanted to create something that you’d be going out on because you want to go for a ride. It's not a commuter bike, it is a Sunday afternoon bike. But at the same time, it's a lot easier than you would imagine. It can be serviced by anyone, so you can tinker with it in the garage, but it’s going to be ready to go every Sunday. It’s the best of both worlds.”
Including options no used bike can match. Customers will order their bespoke builds using an augmented reality smartphone app developed at the University of South Wales, generating a three-dimensional virtual model which can be rendered as if it was parked on their driveway. Options include flat, café racer-style or raised handlebars, several different seats and an almost unlimited colour palette, alongside authentic add-ons such as the leather-lined metal toolbox, luggage racks and, in future, a pillion seat. Each bike will also have digits of its chassis number chosen by the first customer – alongside a manufacturing date code of Mark’s invention.
But the plans go even further. Already en route to global exports, there’s a stripped-down version in the pipeline, and the 4 has room for an electric powertrain too. It’s an option Mark’s great grandfather wouldn’t have had on his engineering radar, though by that point it’s likely to be offered alongside one he definitely did.
“Eventually, my plan is to build the original supercharged engine and sell them as specials – so they won’t be road legal. Nobody alive today has ever heard what this engine sounds like, and I’ve got enough information to build it. I said I've got to build this engine just so people know what sounds like and prove that it works.”
It’s the final element of a labour of love that Mark is keen to share. Owners will be invited on experience days to get out and enjoy their bikes, and the idea is to offer more than just the machine itself. With each member of that small but soon to be global community logged, it’s a chapter of the Wardill family history that should be much easier for his great grandchildren to look up 90 years from now.
“The whole point of me creating the company was in the hope that someone says they’ve got one in the garage,” he says. “Those five engines were so special that nobody would have just weighed them in. So they’re out there somewhere, and I’m desperate to find one. It’s been an amazing adventure so far, but that’s the one challenge I haven’t solved yet.”
All images courtesy of Wardill Motorcycles
“Some people will build prototypes, then they want to change something, so they start again and they never finish the bikes. Whereas I wanted to get right to the end; to get it road legal, to ride it and see what breaks, see what I don’t like and go from there. From an engineering of view, nothing really changed,” he recalls.
“At the start, I could have gone and had a massive loan or found some investors, but I wanted to enjoy the whole process and not have deadlines or bills to pay. One week my guy who did all the engineering for me would say he needed a headlight, so I'd go out and find a headlight. A week later he’d need foot pegs, so I'd find the foot pegs. I could take time, do it slowly and let it evolve.”
That evolution hasn’t strayed too far from Percy’s and Ernest’s ideas. Modern regulations required a foot-operated gearchange – which avoids taking hands off the handlebars – but the experience would otherwise have felt familiar. The bike runs an adjustable Hollis girder fork at the front and hardtail with a sprung seat; a 1920s throwback, without the associated ownership challenges.
“It's a thinker's bike,” says Mark. “I wanted to create something that you’d be going out on because you want to go for a ride. It's not a commuter bike, it is a Sunday afternoon bike. But at the same time, it's a lot easier than you would imagine. It can be serviced by anyone, so you can tinker with it in the garage, but it’s going to be ready to go every Sunday. It’s the best of both worlds.”
Including options no used bike can match. Customers will order their bespoke builds using an augmented reality smartphone app developed at the University of South Wales, generating a three-dimensional virtual model which can be rendered as if it was parked on their driveway. Options include flat, café racer-style or raised handlebars, several different seats and an almost unlimited colour palette, alongside authentic add-ons such as the leather-lined metal toolbox, luggage racks and, in future, a pillion seat. Each bike will also have digits of its chassis number chosen by the first customer – alongside a manufacturing date code of Mark’s invention.
But the plans go even further. Already en route to global exports, there’s a stripped-down version in the pipeline, and the 4 has room for an electric powertrain too. It’s an option Mark’s great grandfather wouldn’t have had on his engineering radar, though by that point it’s likely to be offered alongside one he definitely did.
“Eventually, my plan is to build the original supercharged engine and sell them as specials – so they won’t be road legal. Nobody alive today has ever heard what this engine sounds like, and I’ve got enough information to build it. I said I've got to build this engine just so people know what sounds like and prove that it works.”
It’s the final element of a labour of love that Mark is keen to share. Owners will be invited on experience days to get out and enjoy their bikes, and the idea is to offer more than just the machine itself. With each member of that small but soon to be global community logged, it’s a chapter of the Wardill family history that should be much easier for his great grandchildren to look up 90 years from now.
“The whole point of me creating the company was in the hope that someone says they’ve got one in the garage,” he says. “Those five engines were so special that nobody would have just weighed them in. So they’re out there somewhere, and I’m desperate to find one. It’s been an amazing adventure so far, but that’s the one challenge I haven’t solved yet.”
All images courtesy of Wardill Motorcycles
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