BSA M20

The BSA M20 was a British motorcycle with a simple 500 cc single-cylinder side valve engine, designed by Val Page and developed from 1937 as a heavy-framed sidecar model at the Birmingham Small Arms Company factory in Small Heath, Birmingham. Although first viewed as a near failure by the War Office, it became one of the longest serving motorcycles in the history of British military motorcycling and the most numerous type produced for the Second World War, with 126,000 in active service. Early K-M20 models of 1939 used civilian parts with military fittings. Production continued after the Armoury Road factory was bombed on 19 November 1940, killing 53 workers, because BSA moved the work to other sites.