John Lloyd, who has posted a number of cars at the Cohort, put one up today that would have grabbed me even if it didn’t have the same name as its owner. He left a very brief comment: “My ’59 Lloyd, just before I passed this Lloyd family heirloom to my brother.” But he didn’t explain the question we all have: did this Lloyd become a Lloyd family heirloom because of its name?
The Lloyd, which was the third best selling brand in Germany in the mid 50s, was a small car (obviously) and had originally been powered by a two stroke twin. But the LP600/Alexander sported a very modern 600cc four-stroke twin, powering the front wheels. The Lloyd was the small-car brand of Carl Borgward’s automotive empire, which grew very rapidly in the fifties but imploded in the early 60s.
Lloyds were sold in the US during the great import boom of the 1950s, as this brochure from Pabst Motors in Milwaukee, WI. confirms. I had the rather unusual experience of riding in Lloyds both in Austria, where my godfather had one, as well as in Iowa City, where the high school boys across the street ended up with one. I wrote up that story here.
I’ve also done a proper history of the Lloyd too, so rather than repeat myself, click here.
The car seems to have a lot of ground clearance. Maybe larger aftermarket wheels, the cataloq example does not seem to share the trait.
Never take artist’s renderings seriously, as they’re not faithful to reality.
Those are the stock 15″ wheels, shod with 4.25×15 tires, or 125 R 15s in modern radials. What you’re seeing as unusual ground clearance may the optical illusion of such a small car, those fairly large 15″ wheels, and the rear of the car sitting over a down-sloping driveway. The Lloyd had normal clearance for its time, which was perhaps a bit more than average today.
In addition the bottom of the rocker panel is painted black, giving the illusion of 3 more inches of ground clearance.
Neat little car.
That’s why so many modern crossovers have black rocker-panel trim, to disguise “nerdy” tall-wagon floor-to-ceiling height as “rugged” SUV ground clearance.
They all have that. The photos don’t really show just how small the Lloyd really is. The positive camber makes the wheels look bigger, too, even moreso on the earlier Lloyd 600. Compare it to the other microcars in the photo below. The Isetta to the right is only a few cm lower.
I had a Lloyd 600 station wagon and it could go 55 easy and had removable roof it was screwed on and good ground clearance
I love it! Every once in a while, I’ll see an Alexander for sale and think about giving the owner a call, but most of them seem to be in rough shape, and where do you find parts for a Lloyd in America? 🙂
Very pretty car .
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I didn’t buy one in similar condition thirty years ago from a VW Junk Yard owned by a Friend, IIRC it was only $350 or so , I think I made a mistake in not buying it .
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-Nate
The brochure illustration is meant to give the impression of the car going fast, but I imagine it took a while to get up to that speed!
Well, it’s at least faster than the tree in that picture, I suppose. Speed’s all relative.
That is an appealing little car, certainly. Finding spares must be an issue, though. I can picture the Auto Zone conversations now:
“I’m looking for a Lloyd part, please.”
“Alloyed parts? We have tons of those! What do you need? Brass, cast iron, bronze, electrum?”
Llove that Lloyd!!
I own a 2015 Honda Fit EX and people think that car is small. LOL
Interesting. The advertisement for my Lloyd article viewing happened to be for an LS engine swap kit. Not that I advocate destroying an original vehicle, but a drivetrain swap for the right candidate could be rewarding.
The Lloyd sound like it need a motorcycle engine swapped in.
My dad replaced his last Studebaker with one of these. I’m told it was a 2 cylinder 4 stroke, and on nights it was expected to get below 10 F he would pump out all the engine oil and bring it in the house, below 0 the battery would also come in so it would start the next morning. Mom said she sometimes thought he was trying to figure out how to bring the whole car in piecemeal. He replaced it with a ’63 DKW Junior*. Being a 2 stroke it always started.
*Combined with a 61 Olds wagon as the first cars I remember.
The engine is a thing of beauty.
Very rare in Australia.
However highly regarded by the few that know.
Very rare now, but there was one around the corner from me back in the sixties. And an Isabella TS. Now I wonder if they were owned by the same family.
I discovered a cache of these Lloyds at Riverstone auto wreckers in western Sydney i counted six but I’m sure there were more there the guy that owned the place specialised in oddballs Renaults VWs these and other now uncommon cars.
My dad bought one of these, a ’59, used in the early ’60s. He used to take the engine out of the car to work on it on his workbench. With little power, a tricky clutch and four speed on the column, it was a real challenge for me to learn how to drive as a newby driver. It was an interesting car, but not of the caliber of the Beetle with which he replaced it.
I see where a descendant of Carl Borgward, Christian Borgward has recently revived the Borgward name and is currently manufacturing a luxury SUV, the Borgward BX7, in China.
Excuse me if I don’t jump for joy.
I never understood how such a quintessentially Welsh name came to be used so widely in German-speaking countries. It seems “Lloyd” was used as a term for shipping companies in German for at least 200 years, which is how we got Norddeutscher Lloyd (forerunner of the Lloyd cars in Bremen), Österreichischer Lloyd or Hapag Lloyd, etc. — all shipping lines. Some even became airlines and branched out beyond Europe, which is how we now have Lloyd Aero Boliviano.
Well, this article prompted a little research and it seems it all stems back to a London establishment, Lloyd’s Coffee House, which opened in 1688. It became the gathering place for the shipping community for the next 80+ years. It’s also the origin of the insurance firm Lloyd’s of London.
So in a 21st century sense, this car is a 1959 Starbucks Alexander.
Interesting story. I also wondered about the non German name.
That’s good to know; thanks for the research. I never fail to discover something new and interesting on this site.
RE: Education gained here :
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BIG TIME ! .
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I’ve had lots of schooling and none was as informative as this site .
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Kudos .
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-Nate
To think that I thought the 15 inch wheels looked big on a Studebaker Lark. This car is all wheels.
With the Milwakie location and the Pabst name I have to wonder if it was another venture of the Pabst family? I know Augie, son of the founder of Pabst brewing was a racer as was his son Augie Jr and grandson Augie III.
It was indeed Augie Pabst’s dealership.
http://www.mshf.com/hall-of-fame/inductees/augie-pabst.html
Very cool little cars. I wonder what was the advantage with the large (for such a small car) wheels, as opposed to the much smaller ones used by most mini-cars. (Minicar isn’t fair as it’s a viable non-city car, just a small one…early A segment?)
I may have mentioned this before when Paul wrote about Lloyds, but our nextdoor neighbor when I was growing up in Berkeley, California, tried his hand at selling Lloyds out of his house. This was the era when another local dealership, which was at least housed in a small one-bay gas station, not a residential home, sold Citroen, Peugeot, English Ford, Vauxhall and Hillman. I think our neighbor stopped selling them when I was very young (I was born in ’56), but until at least the late-sixties, perhaps even later, he had a grey Lloyd station wagon slowly rotting in his garage, and I caught glimpses of it over the years. I do recall seeing a few Lloyds on the street, but they were perhaps even more rare than DKW’s, both far less common than 2-stroke Saabs. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, but the man across the street had a Borgward Isabella coupe, which I remember well, replaced by a more mundane Beetle in the late-sixties.
I caught the flu one night on John Lloyd’s floor in, Lancaster, in March, 1986? (ok maybe I was already getting sick…)
A group of us were on the way to York, PA, for the Studebaker Swap Meet, so we crashed there the night before. We didn’t know how to turn on the heat, and John was out working…. freezing all night long surely brought on one of the worst cases of the flu I’ve ever had.
But I saw this car in the flesh that morning, then we continued on our way to York in the 1957 Scotsman we were travelling in from NYC. I still hear the thump of that car’s driveshaft against the floorpan — it had a frozen u-joint.
Great post – cross another one off the list of cars I never knew about…
I had a Lloyd Alexander many years ago and am looking for one now!
If anyone knows of one for sale in whatever shape please put me in touch. 512-680-3599
Das ist unser Loyd
Very nice looking car, it’s even a TS with the 25hp big block! These are great cars indeed, I have 5 of them.