Three and You're In!(Escape Roads)

Byline: ERIC TEGLER

Picture yourself a young AUTO enthusiast in England in the late 1950s. Your yearning to join the sports car set is matched only by your inability to afford a sports car and the driving test necessary for your license. Worry not, lad, Berkeley (Brits say "Barkley'') has just the kit for you!

Berkeley Cars Ltd. of Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, arrived late to Britain's micro-car scene but had a significant effect. It sprang from a 1956 partnership between noted mini-car designer Lawrie Bond and Charles Panter, owner of Berkeley Coachworks, Europe's largest manufacturer of fiberglass caravans (campers). In the late 1940s, Bond created a two-seat roadster with a fiberglass body, two-stroke engine and front-wheel drive. But he lacked a manufacturing partner until he met Panter, who combined a desire to offset seasonal variations in caravan sales with a reservoir of fiberglass expertise.

The pair launched production of Bond's design in 1956 with the Sports SA322 (also called the B60), a roadster with a fiberglass body over two aluminum bulkheads and crossmembers, forming a monocoque. An independent suspension and a 322-cc Anzani two-stroke, two-cylinder motorcycle engine driving the front wheels through a sequential transmission rounded out the package. The 600-pound car was praised for its excellent handling and performance despite having just 15 hp on tap. After approximately 150 units were produced, a switch to the more powerful Excelsior 328-cc two-cylinder was made and the car became the SE328 (B65). A three-cylinder version (the SE492/B90) was also offered, and a number of the little roadsters were sold in the United States in 1957 and 1958.

Berkeley's mighty mites even enjoyed racing success at Le Mans and the Mille Miglia. But in 1958, the Austin-Healey Bugeye Sprite appeared. Perceived as more car for the same money, it put a dent in Berkeley sales. The company responded with larger-displacement models but most significantly with the three-wheeled T60. ...