82 • AUTOLOCKSMITHS
The Auto Locksmith
of Yesteryear
» » BOTH LOCK MANUFACTURERS AND
those locksmiths involved in selling fitting
and servicing security products have
always been quick to respond to new
trends. The latest ‘big thing’ seems also
to attract those that would exploit the
trend with criminal activity in one way or
another. The lock is one way to counter
such threats; every locksmith realises
that the use of a lock is an attempt by his
patron to modify human nature. We have
already talked about the fact that locks are
always part of something else, part of the
fabric of a building, a safe or strongroom,
or securing doors, drawers and
compartments of furniture. Another class of
lock emerged a little over 100 years ago to
combat criminal interest in the latest must
have and the specialised locks associated
with it: locks for the automobile.
Throughout the 19th century there
were experiments with ‘new-fangled
horseless carriages’, but it was the early
years of the 20th century that cars
started to be available to the masses,
and with that came the emergence of
locks for the purpose.
With the establishment of the motor
car the traditional method of securing
carriage doors with a safety style catch
or bolt operated with a universal key
known as a budget key might have been
satisfactory from a reliable safety point of
A Victorian
folding carriage
or budget
key that was
used to secure
early carriage
doors and
compartments.
Another style
of Carriage or
Budget key that
folded away into
a neat cylinder;
much more
comfortable in
the pocket.
A leather strap lock, typically used
to secure luggage to vehicles.
Lips produced this integral
strap lock for vehicles.
view but soon became inadequate from
a security viewpoint.
Although locks for horse drawn
coaches, railway carriages, steam road
vehicles, velocipedes and bicycles
appeared in the early British Patents,
one of the earliest specifically for road
vehicles was a bolt arrangement which
locked of the steering mechanism, it
was slow and cumbersome to use and
worked with an integral combination
lock. The patents reveal that the locks for
doors, bonnet trunk etc. were more to do
with holding securely than locking, hard
springing and bumpy unmeteled roads
made for a real bone-shaking experience
and doors were liable to jolt open.
It was after the great war of 1914-1918
that the motor car really started to become
established and with that the need to
secure from those that would steal. Early
vehicles were supplied with very basic
locks utilising disc-tumbler barrels fitted
into door handles and simple ignition
switches. Initially it was the traditional lock
companies that offered upgrades.
One of the first companies to produce a
true security lock over 125 earlier, during
the late Georgian period, was not slow
in seeing the potential in locks for a new
automobile market. Bramah had already
produced secure locks for buildings and
furniture based on the double acting slider
principles. The idea was adaptable and
equally favourable whether produced
in the miniature designs or for larger
applications, so securing these required
only minimal tooling/redesign for use in the
rapidly emerging automotive trade. The
only modification to the cylinder itself was
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Another strap lock, this one
with a Bramah mechanism.
A couple of pages from Bramah’s
catalogue. The range also included key
switches, gear shift locks, spare tyre
locks, petrol tap locks etc., and in fact
Bramah devoted nine pages to variations
of their locks adapted to motor vehicles.
the addition of a sliding dust cover to help
minimise the ingress of dirt, don’t forget at
this time most highways outside the towns
and cities were in fact dirt roads.
When we look at modern car keys with
their wavy edge or track cuts, sometimes
referred to laser cuts, we think it’s a
relatively modern system. Actually it was
invented and patented back in 1932 by
H Biemer of Berlin Germany. Wilmot
Breeden took up the patent and produced
vehicle locks in England. The patent
reads: “A rotatable barrel lock comprises
a plurality of thin tumbler strips 8 bearing
directly against one another and provided
with lateral lugs 9, Fig. 3, for displacement
by a cam grove in the side of the key,
the lugs 9 also preventing the tumbler
strips from dropping out of the barrel 3.
The tumbler strips 8 are not subjected to