The story
Wasp was founded in 1964 by engineer and off-road motorcyclist Robin 'Robbie' Rhind-Tutt, who was originally employed by the Ministry of Defence as an engineering apprentice at Boscombe Down. He designed and built a number of off-road motorcycle frames which he used in motocross competitions. Other competitors were interested in Rhind-Tutt's frames and commissioned him to build specialist frames, so he decided to form Wasp Motorcycles Ltd. The company changed its name to Wasp Engineering Ltd in 1997, but continues to trade under the name of Wasp Motorcycles.
The company was based at Berwick St James, near Salisbury, Wiltshire, where Rhind-Tutt had been born and brought up. Rhind-Tutt died in September 2019, aged 78. Around that time the company was at Dinton, still in the Salisbury area; in 2024 it opened on a business park at Dunkeswell, near Honiton, Devon.
A Wasp/BSA motocross sidecar outfit ridden by former world motocross champion Dave Bickers was used in the 1979 World War II film Escape to Athena, disguised to look like a German military BMW R75.
From Wikipedia’s article on Wasp Motorcycles, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4