Rex - Banier

Banier bicycle with Rex clip-on engine.

REX Motorenwerke, Munich, Germany. 1948-1964

This Munich-based company built bicycle engines and complete mopeds. The two-stroke engines were of 31cc, 34cc, 40cc, and 49cc: they were sold as FM31, FM34, FM40 and FM50 models. ("FM" stands for "Fahrrad Motor"). FM50 model from 1952 was the only one with a clutch. Rex engines were mounted over the front wheel, with tank on the handlebars.

Rex was developed from 60cc Cockerell Record engine, designed in 1932 by talented German constructor and inventor, Fritz Gockerell. Rex engines were well designed, trustworthy and light enough to be carried by a lady – as photo shown below was meant to prove.

„Rex-Motorenwerk of Munich was established as one of the German cyclemotor pioneers in 1948, producing their FM31 31cc, 0.7bhp cyclemotor attachment engine to mount above and drive the front wheel of a bicycle by belt, to a pulley rim that was clamped to the spokes. In 1950 this motor was licensed to British Salmson for manufacture at Larkhall near Glasgow, becoming more familiar to British cyclemotorists as the rear-mounted Cyclaid. Further front-mounted Rex cyclemotor versions followed: the FM34 (34cc, 0.8bhp), FM40 (40cc, 0.9bhp) cyclemotor engines and FM50 (50cc, 1.1bhp with 10mm Pallas carb. The subsequent FM50.1 variant with Pallas 12mm carb raised the power rating to 1.4bhp and superseded all earlier forms by 1955, then being offered by Rex as cyclemotor sets for front mounting with belt drive, or in-frame location with belt drive or clutched chain drive versions of the motorised cycle kit.

Apart from the cyclemotor kits, Rex were now also producing their own complete mopeds based on the FM50.1 motor, in a puzzling choice of models with left or right handed belt drive in a brazed-lug tubular frame. Phillips took up a licence to market Rex products in the UK, heralding the start of a trading relationship between the two companies with introduction of the Phillips P36X Motorised Cycle in October 1954. While Rex only sold these models on the continent as a cyclemotor engine attachment kit, the Phillips Company only sold them in Britain as a complete branded machine built onto their own heavy-duty cycle frame...” Mark Daniels, „Pandamonium”, www.icenicam.ukfsn.org/articles1/art0021.html