LMC
Underway at start 26th National rally 2019.
A potted history and anecdotes of some 60 years ownership of my 1913 Lloyd Motor Engineering Company (LMC) 3.5hp motorcycle – registration 74552 In December 1960, while on a touring holiday with his family in the South Island, Ian Bade’s father went off to get the family Ford Customline‘s muffler repaired while in Dunedin. He returned to the campsite with news that he’d bought a 1913 LMC motorcycle – which is still owned by son Ian! How’s that for provenance? Words and photos Ian Bade The muffler of our Ford Customline had been damaged on a rutted track leading to Lake Paringa before the advent of the Haast highway, hence the trip to get it repaired. To this day I do not know how he found out this bike was for sale. The story he told us at the time was that an apprentice builder had been knocking down the wall in a basement of a house they were renovating and the LMC was one of two motorcycles stored behind the wall, and was in running order. On our arrival back home Dad said ‘If I ever wanted to understand how an internal combustion engine works then a very early motorcycle engine is the best to learn from’, and duly said I could have the bike. I would have been aged 19 at the time. As I did not know of any vintage motorcycle clubs in New Zealand I wrote to the Vintage Motor Cycle Club (VMCC) of the UK for information and they gave me specifications on tank colours (which was not quite correct) and also told me that mine was the first LMC they had on their register. In 1962 I set out on my big OE and on arrival in the UK in early 1963 made a point of going to the headquarters of the VMCC and meeting the officials of the club and talked about the bike.
30 Beaded Wheels
THE RESTORATION On my return to New Zealand in 1965 I commenced removing the rust from the wheel rims and mudguards which were quite severely rusted. Not having any skills or knowledge about restoration I just sanded away by hand with coarse sandpaper and in the process thinned the tinware so much it became as thin as tissue paper and see-through in places. So much so that when the pieces were taken to the spray-painters they had to put on such a thick coat of filler putty before the undercoat thus it was the putty that could be regarded as the mudguard! I knew nothing of rust converters and I am not even sure whether they were available back then. The result was that about 30 years later the rust had returned and I had to repeat the process. But this time I treated the metal before painting.
GETTING INFORMATION ON THE LMC Catalogues and parts lists at the time were non-existent on the LMC. Thus I had nothing but the scrap of information from the UK Register. At some point I was told that one Andy Thomson of Kairanga, near Palmerston North had an LMC, so one day I took off up to his place on my Triumph 3TA motorcycle and
