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Kenna Sidecar History |
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A Brief History of the Kenna Sidecars: During the fuel crisis of 1971 a man (Bill) who owned a fiber-glass manufacturing plant had noticed a young man riding to a nearby factory on a sidecar outfit. Ever on the lookout for new business Bill thought a lightweight sidecar outfit might catch on as an economical means of commuter transport and intercepted the man on the sidecar and talked about designing a fiberglass body and manufacturing it. Between them they came up with the design and molds you know so well. But it never went any further. They mounted the first body to the chassis of the old sidecar but the pair seemed to have parted company before a new chassis was produced. At that time I worked as a Mechanical Design Engineer at a machine tool manufacturer and was looking for somebody to manufacture some molded fiberglass covers for a new machine. One of the first companies I contacted was Fiberglass Production and Tooling. When visiting their factory I noticed three really slick looking sidecar bodies stacked in a dark corner. I was immediately interested as I had ridden many miles with sidecars in England, before I emigrated to the US, and had ridden them in trials and at Silverstone race circuit. I spoke to Bill about them and we eventually agreed that I would buy those bodies and the molds, and he would supply me with new bodies at a fixed price. I then had to design my own chassis and find somebody to manufacture that for me. Most sidecar manufacturers use round tubing, but I chose to use square tubing for a number of reasons. Round tubing is best suited for situations involving twisting and torsion. A sidecar chassis has very little of that type of stress and square tubing is better suited to the bending stresses, if the mounts are designed correctly. In addition, all the bike-to-sidecar fittings are easier arrange with square tubing. For simplicity I used a torsion rubber suspension that I had manufactured for me by a company that made this type of suspension for trailers. This provided a very solid connection between the bike and the sidecar wheel. In a couple of months I had the chassis designed and manufactured and it was time to mount the body. All went well and after a few adjustments it was running perfectly. In fact one of my first customers tested the alignment by riding it at fifty-five mph with his hands above his head. He eventually bought two of them. I did buy a steering damper for it but never found it necessary. I used to assemble them in my garage and sold about fifty in total. I was not set up to do a good sales job, and sidecars generally were not selling very well by the mid eighties. I had bought my own CAD/CAM system and was doing quite well as a consulting design engineer and stopped making sidecars. I was approached by two of my customers who wished to buy the business, which they did, and started producing them in Manteca, CA., I believe. I did hear some time later that they had sold out to somebody in Canada, but I am not too sure about that. I chose the name Kenna the same way that Emil Jellineck attached the name of his daughter, Mercedes, to the Benz cars he was racing and selling. I thought if he can do that, so can I, and so the Kenna sidecar was born. Incidentally, I sold four sidecars in Washington state. They seemed quite popular up there. Maybe your wife's sidecar was one of these. I hope you find this history interesting. I would be interested in what you can tell me beyond this. Ron Rennie
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