Lloyd's Folly

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As the fog of war began to lift in the latter half of the 1940s, manufacturers clamoured to produce new cars suitable for the looming period of austerity that would follow. The easiest solution to the problem of fuel efficient, minimal motoring was to find the smallest possible off-the-shelf engine – invariably one which had found its home originally in a motorcycle – and cobble together a drivetrain – by chain, most likely – and wrap it up in the simplest of coachwork only just capable of keeping the weather off two occupants within.

Roland Lloyd, an inveterate tinkerer from the northern port town of Hull, had other ideas. He had a vision for a simple, economical motor car for the postwar era, but for Roland merely cobbling together other manufacturer’s cast-offs would not suffice.

He designed a remarkable light alloy two-stroke engine of 650cc, a tubular backbone chassis and a system of front-wheel drive incorporating independent suspension. The car was clothed in an alloy and steel body very much in the prewar sports car idiom. Sadly, the Lloyd 650 was too expensive to build and too niche to find a mass market. Only a few hundred were built until 1952.

 In the latest issue of The Automobile we come face to face with a rare survivor and reassess the merits of this quirky economy car.

Photographs by John Warburton 

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