Rods & Classics: Lloyd started out with electric power
Story by Nigel Matthews
The German-built products under the name of Lloyd date back to the beginning of the twentieth century, when the Norddeutsche Lloyd shipping line of Bremen, Germany fell upon financial difficulties.
In an effort to diversify, the company founded a subsidiary in 1902 and built electric motors to power electric vehicles. It entered into an arrangement with the maker of Kreiger electric vehicles, and formed a company called NAMAG (North German automobile and Motors Limited) to build electric cars of their design, selling them under licence as Lloyds.
The timing was terrible because the electric vehicle was on its way out and gasoline engines were in.
With the help of Joseph Vollmer, Lloyd built some large and luxurious cars with 2.3-litre, 2.5-litre, 3.7-litre, and 5.5-litre engines. They did not sell very well.
Lloyd continued to lose money up until May of 1914 when it was taken over by Hansa-Automobile. The standalone Lloyd name was discontinued with the company being renamed Hansa-Lloyd.
The Lloyd name was dropped in 1929 when Carl Borgward of the Borgward Company took over Hansa-Lloyd.
It was not until 1950 that the Lloyd name resurfaced when Borgward formed a new company called Lloyd Motoren-Werke Ltd and began producing cars to compete with the vehicles of the “Bubble car” boom.
The Lloyd had a wooden framework that was covered in leatherette to form the body. Its German nickname was “Hansaplastwagen” which translated meant sticking plaster car or Band-Aid car!
The last model of Lloyd was quite an attractive car, and selling 40,000 units in 1959 for such a small company was quite an achievement.
Lloyd’s downfall was the parent company Borgward, who filed for bankruptcy in 1961.
Both companies were able to pay all of their creditors in full after the bankruptcy, but it was the end of car production for both of them.
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