Craven...the luggage equipment for British, European and Japanese motorcycles 1950-1980...and beyond

Ken and Mollie Craven were inveterate motorcycle tourers who used to take like minded souls on "Parti-tours" to Spain and other European destinations. At that time there was little, if any, luggage equipment available for motorcycles other than ex-WD panniers. Ken, an engineer, realized that there was a demand and came up with luggage equipment to do the job.

The first panniers were made from a compressed fibre board and had square corners with metal strapping or banding round them, a feature that remains to this day. The early efforts of most companies tend to disappear as the volumes sold do not tend to be great and as the product improves with time, early versions are disposed of to be replaced with 'new and improved' ones. It is a testament to the quality of the design and manufacture that there are many of these really early panniers still around.

A manufacturing company called Craven Equipment was formed in 1952 based in Eden Grove, London and was to dominate the motorcycle luggage market for nigh on 30 years. Ken retired from the business and sold it to Stadium Ltd, known for their helmets and other motorcycle accessories and in the 1980's they in turn sold it on to a firm based in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. This company was in the business of refurbishing petrol station forecourts and making various things from glass fibre. Not long before this company ceased trading the Craven part of the business was sold to Phil Primmer's company, West Country Sidecars, but after a few years he himself was to retire, hopefully to ride his Vincent to the furthest reaches of Europe and beyond.

In 2007 Draganfly Motorcycles bought the Craven Equipment company from Phil and after 3 years of not managing to make much progress have in the last year, re-furbished the machine tools, jigs and moulds.A lot of the equipment was in poor condition, although most of the moulds are pretty good. There was virtually no stock but there was a lot of drawings, however the part numbers on them did not match the samples that they acquired and further did not match the numbers on the instruction sheets! As the Craven system is made up of 5 standard racks and about 20 styles of panniers all held together by a unique set of brackets for each motorcycle, without a list of which bit is for which bike, providing fitting kits will be difficult.

Initially, therefore they will be making the standard parts, such as racks, catches and beading etc. before moving into fitting kits.