Chambers Motors was the first automobile

Automobile

An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

 manufacturer in Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

. The company built vehicles by hand featuring high-quality components designed and fabricated in-house. Passenger cars were made to suit doctors and wealthy businessmen, and commercial vehicles were produced for duty as delivery van

Van

A van is a kind of vehicle used for transporting goods or groups of people.In British English usage, it can be either specially designed or based on a saloon or sedan car, the latter type often including derivatives with open backs...

s, ambulance

Ambulance

An ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...

s, and hearse

Hearse

A hearse is a funerary vehicle used to carry a coffin from a church or funeral home to a cemetery. In the funeral trade, hearses are often called funeral coaches.-History:...

s. A key feature of the vehicles was a unique design of epicyclic gearbox in the rear axle. Chambers Motors employed around 75 people and built approximately 500 vehicles in 25 years of operation.

Origin

The founder, Jack Chambers, had earlier designed and constructed the first Vauxhall car in 1902-3 while Managing Director of the Vauxhall Iron Works, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. After resigning in January 1904 he filed a master patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 in May 1904 for a Chambers car featuring coil spring

Coil spring

A Coil spring, also known as a helical spring, is a mechanical device, which is typically used to store energy and subsequently release it, to absorb shock, or to maintain a force between contacting surfaces...

s and a twin cylinder transverse engine with chain

Roller chain

Roller chain or bush roller chain is the type of chain drive most commonly used for transmission of mechanical power on many kinds of domestic, industrial and agricultural machinery, including conveyors, wire and tube drawing machines, printing presses, cars, motorcycles, and simple machines like...

 drive.

Production

Production was undertaken in Cuba Street, Belfast

Belfast

Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

 in association with Jack's brothers Robert and Charlie who had been operating as millwright

Millwright

A millwright is a craftsman or tradesman engaged with the construction and maintenance of machinery.Early millwrights were specialist carpenters who erected machines used in agriculture, food processing and processing lumber and paper...

s from 1897. Their main product was an automatic bottle-wiring machine to fasten the corks of mineral-water bottles at the rate of 1200 per hour. During the First World War the company produced ambulances (for the Ulster division), munitions (such as shell cases and percussion caps for hand grenades), and aircraft components (for Avro 504

Avro 504

The Avro 504 was a World War I biplane aircraft made by the Avro aircraft company and under licence by others. Production during the War totalled 8,970 and continued for almost 20 years, making it the most-produced aircraft of any kind that served in World War I, in any military capacity, during...

 biplanes).

Closure

Business became less profitable in the face of competition from mass-produced cars. The operation was voluntarily wound up in 1929. Only four Chambers cars are known to exist today, including an 8 hp model from 1908 displayed in the newly-refurbished Ulster Museum

Ulster Museum

The Ulster Museum, located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, has around 8,000 square metres of public display space, featuring material from the collections of fine art and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasures from the Spanish Armada, local history, numismatics, industrial...

 in Belfast

Belfast

Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

, Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

.

Specifications of Chambers cars

Chambers cars competed in many hill-climb, reliability, and time trials. In the Irish Reliability Trial of 1906 during non-stop runs an average petrol consumption of 43 miles to the gallon was achieved.

Model	Years	Cylinders	Engine orientation	Bore	Stroke	Wheelbase	Track	Feature
7 hp	1904–1905	Two	Horizontal	3⅛ in	4¼ in	6 ft 6 in	4 ft
8 hp	1905–1909	Two	Horizontal	3⅛ in	4¼ in	6 ft 6 in	4 ft
10 hp	1906–1909	Two	Horizontal	3¾ in	4½ in	7 ft	4 ft
10-12 hp	1908–1909	Two	Horizontal	4 in	4½ in	7 ft	4 ft
12-16 hp	1907–1909	Two	Horizontal	3⅜ in	4¼ in	8 ft 6 in	4 ft
12-14 hp	1909	Four	Vertical	85 mm	4 in	8 ft	4 ft
12-16 hp	1910–1924	Four	Vertical	3⅜ in	4 in	9 ft 6 in	4 ft 3 in
11-15 hp	1912–1924	Four	Vertical	3⅛ in	4 in	8 ft 3 in	4 ft
11-15 hp	1919–1924	Four	Vertical	3⅓ in	4 in	8 ft 6 in	4 ft	Sliding gear gearbox
14/34	1925	Four	Vertical	2 15/16 in	4 in	9 ft 6 in	4 ft 3 in	Sliding gear gearbox
18/48	1925–1929	Six	Vertical	2 11/16 in	4 in	10 ft 6 in	4 ft 8 in

External links

• Chambers Car Returns to Ulster Museum
• The Industrial Heritage of South Belfast