Dr Alex Moulton
The space-frame Moulton bicycle and the Mini at the Moulton bicycle factory in 1995.
He held great faith in his convictions and possessed the courage to follow them to fruition.
process, beginning with a four-post shaker table allowing ride measurements to be taken in the laboratory and eventually leading to predictive mathematical (computer) modelling. Key to these innovations was Tony Best, who joined Moulton Developments in 1967 and was to lead the evolution from Hydrolastic to Hydragas suspension, with a nitrogen gas spring replacing the rubber to give a less harsh ride in ‘full bounce’ mode.
Alex Moulton in the prime of his professional life at 44 years of age.
Hydragas was introduced on the Austin Allegro in 1973, followed by the Princess in 1975 and the Metro in 1980. In the case of the Metro, Moulton was dismayed to find that Spen King refused to interconnect the units front-to- rear in the intended manner, preferring to use telescopic dampers and a small side-to-side interconnection pipe. With typical candour, he bought an example from Leyland, installed a ‘proper’ interconnected Hydragas system, brought the top brass down from Longbridge and got them to drive it. Needless to say, the Rover Metro’s suspension was interconnected. Hydragas enjoyed a late flowering on the MGF sports car, with the last new car fitted with Moulton suspension rolling off the line in 2002 – 43 years and 12 million cars after the first.
Following the sale of Moulton Bicycles to Raleigh, Alex Moulton was retained as a consultant. Unimpressed by the constraints of such a large organisation, Moulton took the opportunity to use the technology developed in his suspensions business to undertake a fully quantified scientific study of the bicycle, thought to be the first of its kind. After Raleigh ceased manufacture of Moulton bicycles in 1974, Alex, again determined to ‘go it alone’, was keen to retain complete control of his new bicycle company, Alex Moulton Limited. With his eyes firmly fixed on excellence in design and engineering, the new ‘AM’ series bicycle was to be labelled by some as “a bicycle for doctors, engineers and perfectionists”.
Successive evolutions of this multi-tube space-frame bicycle were to find friends all around the world, from all walks of life, and all attracted by the seemingly magical ride offered by Moulton’s steel and rubber design. Still manufactured in the original workshops in Bradford on Avon, the Moulton bicycle remains
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in high demand, particularly in export markets. Following a re-organisation in 2008, its future – both in design and manufacture – is assured.
Moulton was an idiosyncratic, intensely intelligent and strongly driven individual. He held great faith in his convictions and possessed the courage to follow them to fruition. Like those he worked with in his younger days – Sir Roy Fedden, Sir Alec Issigonis – he could be a difficult man to disagree with, as many found to their cost. He did, however, maintain a select group of valued colleagues who knew his foibles and remained immensely loyal, several spending their entire working lives with Moulton. At times he would indulge his staff – cricket nets on the lawn, kayaks on the river – but he was not a man to suffer fools.
Moulton’s engineering legacy, aside from the artefacts themselves, lies in his methodology of understanding first principles followed by the relentless design-make-test feedback loop, interpolating the test results wherever possible. There seemed to be no limit to the number of design iterations he would take, he would simply continue until he was satisfied with the result. In addition, he was sensitive to the emotional responses felt by users of his designs and was very taken by the Japanese idea of the ‘spirit’ of an artefact, inherited from its creator.
The style embodied in both his life and his work – and there was seldom a boundary between them – was, in scale and substance, evocative of the great engineers of the Industrial Revolution. Having seen it all through his own eyes, he lamented the demise of British manufacturing – the relentless off-shoring of jobs and the shameless pursuit of money. He believed in homo faber (“Man the Maker”) and the satisfaction and moral rewards thus gained:-“Man should make things – make a profit, of course, but don’t take the money gain as the prime judgement”
About the author Dan Farrell BSc(Hons) MTech CEng FIED, is group technical director, Moulton Bicycle Company. He is an accomplished cyclist, and is known for his technical and travel writing. He was elected a Fellow of the IED in 2011.
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