UK hovercraft manufacturer shut down after 48 years

Bill Baker Vehicles Limited, which traded under the name BBV Hovercraft, was officially dissolved on June 16, nearly 50 years after it was incorporated in February 1978.

Founded and run by Bill Baker, a ‘pioneer in light hovercraft in the UK’, who built his first operational hovercraft in 1973, the company produced racing hovercraft designs and larger hovercraft for use over ‘all forms of terrain’, built under licence in the US and Sweden.

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The BBV Hovercraft website said: “No other vehicle could do the job as efficiently.

“Hovercraft are supplied by us, or made under licence to our designs, and are used for transport, surveying, pollution monitoring and more, around the world.”

Trading out of Hornton in Banbury, Mr Baker ran the company with his son.

Mr Baker said: “I am 81 and have been winding down for some time, but as we still have customers who use their hovercraft for both surveying and rescue my son Rupert has taken on the task of keeping them operational, and is still involved with the competitive use run by the Hovercraft Club of Great Britain (HCGB).

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“The use of hovercraft for recreation has changed over the years with a falling membership of the HCGB, the commercial use in this country has never been large, but many copies of our craft are now being made around the World which is satisfying  to the ego, if not the bank-balance.”

The Hovercraft Club of Great Britain is the organisation for racing and recreational hovercraft.

Mr Baker self-published a seminal book last December on his experience of hovercraft, titled The British Light Hovercraft Beginnings.