Australian-made motorcycles in the 1950s - help please

[cardan]

The Malvern /Mobylette card has very little info. The engine number is 65854, it had been registered twice, first time reg number AS 043 but the date of registration was left blank. NEVER seen that before and I’ve now looked at a monumental number of these cards now. The second registration was on 22.10.55 and the number issued was BH 736.

What a pity the first rego date is blank. The engine number 65854 is very early, dating (according to the vast Mobylette community on line) to 1951 (numbers 44526 to 191039), so a build/registration date of 1951-2 would be fine. Can we confirm by estimating a date for the rego number AS 043?

The Malvern Star/Mobylette in the museum in Melbourne is NOT this bike, but has a similar engine number 660**, no doubt from the same batch of engines. Still looking into it, but according to the helpful museum staff the bike looks very much like a pure Mobylette, but with certain Malvern Star features, such as three 6-point stars brazed onto the head lug. It has "M3" stamped on the seat lug, where the frame number (eg 52Mxxxx on their 1952 2-speeder) is stamped. If this were a "Malvern Star" number from 1953 I'd expect it to be 53M. According to the museum acquisition record in 1972, the bike was built in Melbourne using a French engine and parts, but there is no supporting evidence, or even an explanation, of this claim. But I could believe it: maybe a few Mobylettes (let's say three, numbered M1, M2, M3... because I have a vivid imagination) as a trial of local assembly from imported parts - the model on which Australian motorcycle manufacture was based since pre-WW1 days. There were duty/tax benefits for local build.

Note that Bruce Small Ltd was not the Mobylette agent in Melbourne, and I haven't seen any Mobylette advertising in Melbourne before Mayfair Motors gained the agency for Mobylettes (and other Motobecane motorcycles and scooters) early in 1953. My guess is that Bruce Small and Motobecane were investigating whether Mobylettes would be imported complete, or assembled in the factory in South Melbourne. Looks like the former won, unless a study of surviving Mobylettes in Australia reveals more local builds.

Cheers

Leon

[cardan]

To add to the "Mobylettes built outside France with French parts" story, it turns out this was not uncommon. One of the biggest operations was in Spain, where GAC built Mobylettes under licence from 1951. Seems to fit in well with the idea of Bruce Small doing some trial assembly in Melbourne in 1951, even if quantity production didn't follow.

I wonder who knew in 1951, when engine numbers were 65000-ish, that total production of Mobylettes would reach 14 million by the 1970s.

Leon

[Rex]

Mobylettes were also built under licence by Raleigh for a while.
Vile things.
The moped with the two-speed  Villiers 3K engine (Philips, Norman etc) were far better.

[cardan]

Yes indeed Rex, but not until 1960 according to what I found. Turkey was another base for Mobylette manufacture.

Leon

[33d6]

Back to the Melbourne Mobylette. Victoria changed over to alphanumeric number plates in 1951.
In fact the first one, AA 001 was issued to a 1933 MOV Velocette on 17/9/51 so the Mobylette AS 043 is probably late ‘52 or early ‘53. That’s the closest I can get. The changeover from all numeric to the new alphanumeric was erratic as it seems they continued to issue old style plates alongside the new type until stocks were exhausted.

Finally, by this time Bruce Small was moving out of two-wheelers and into real estate. He could see that’s where the big money was. I don’t think his heart was in Mobylettes.

[cardan]

Thanks. Quite possible that "prototype" Malvern Star/Mobylettes, maybe built in 1951/52, were cleaned out in the era of the "reconditioned in out factory" Auto-bykes in 1952-53. The museum's bike might appear on the registration record as a Mobylette?

I have another entry for weird things: There is a surviving Malvern Star in Victoria - engine number XXA 20610, a "6M..." frame number so 1946 build - that has a very original "Henderson" transfer on the tank. Certainly built in the Bruce Small factory, but I wonder if it was sold new as a Henderson or Malvern Star. The transfer is full size, and right across the tank, so much more than a dealer's transfer on a Malvern Star. The search for a Henderson cycle shop in Victoria has come up with not much - maybe something in Heidelberg. Of course it could have been refinished as a Henderson in a later refurb.

Probably time to move on!

Leon

[33d6]

XXA 20610 first registered 17/5/46 as a Malvern Star, number plate 3468. Maybe the first owners surname was Henderson?

[cardan]

Thanks for that - so much knowledge from these records! It's a lovely large-ish Henderson transfer, so I can only assume it was made for the down tube of a Henderson bicycle. Maybe Mr Henderson who had the bike shop in Heidelberg was involved with a renovation at some point. The fact that is was originally registered as a MS means I don't have to worry about it for the book.

Cheers, and thanks again,

Leon