Lloyd 600

As with its predecessor, the Lloyd 400, the full name of the Lloyd 600 featured a two letter prefix that identified the body shape as follows: LP600 ("Limousine" / saloon), LC600 ("Cabrio-Limousine" / cabriolet), LK600 (panel van) and LS600 (estate). With the Lloyd Alexander these prefixes were dropped. There was, in any case, no "Cabrio-Limousine" version of the Lloyd Alexander listed.

Ten years earlier, with steel in desperately short supply, Lloyds in this class had been constructed round a timber frame, and covered with synthetic leather, or more recently using a combination of steel panels for the "outer door skins" and fabric covering for parts of the car body not needing the same level of exterior rigidity. This history was reflected in the structural architecture of the newer steel-bodied Lloyd 600 and Lloyd Alexander models. The Lloyd 400 had, since October 1954, used an all-steel body, with panels that were bolted on to the steel frame and were therefore far easier to replace, if necessary, than bent body panels on competitor models from Volkswagen or NSU, constructed with welded steel body shells. This feature was carried over to the Lloyd 600 and Lloyd Alexander. The body sat of a tubular steel chassis.

The windscreen on the Lloyd 600 and Lloyd Alexander models was flat. At the back, however, on all Lloyd saloons/sedans a small flat rear window had been replaced by a full-width curved rear window back in 1954. The doors were hinged at their rear edge through till 1961, by which the arrangement was becoming rare. It facilitated access, at least to the front seats, but by the 1960s people were beginning to express safety concerns over the risk of the doors bursting open while the car was moving.

The Lloyd Alexander saloon / sedan was differentiated from the Lloyd 600 by an external "boot/trunk lid" giving access to the luggage compartment for those unable or unwilling to clamber into the passenger cabin and reach past the back of the back seat. Another visible difference was the windows on the doors, which on the Lloyd Alexander wound down fully into the doors. On the Lloyd 600 only the front half of the two part door window could be opened, sliding horizontally backwards, a lightweight inexpensive arrangement which was replicated in Britain on the first Minis in 1959.

The Lloyd 600 / Lloyd Alexander body offered accommodation in the passenger cabin for four adults, but access to the rear seat was difficult and space cramped, with the width of the back seat reduced by the space taken up by the rear wheel arches. There was more space at the front, although there were criticisms that the steering wheel was too close to the driver. The luggage locker at the back had a total computed capacity of 104 litres.

Lloyd itself still had no heavy presses for stamping body panels from sheet steel. Body panels for the Lloyd 600 and Lloyd Alexander were produced by Allgaier and Karmann and then delivered in bare-metal form to the Lloyd factory in Bremen for machining, assembly and painting.

During the 1950s the small car market in West Germany was increasingly dominated by Volkswagen. In 1955, Volkswagen produced 279,986 passenger cars. Apart from a handful of exotic looking (and exotically priced) vehicles, the passenger cars produced by Volkswagen were all the same shape. The shape had been innovative twenty years earlier, but the architecture and look of the car had changed very little since. The approach of the Borgward Group could hardly have been more different. In 1955 the group produced 91,810 passenger cars, using three different brands and offering a wider range of models than any other West German manufacturer, with models replaced or substantially upgraded every few years. One result of these contrasting approaches was that it was Volkswagen that set the prices in what was still an acutely price sensitive market segment. In March 1954 the price of a standard Volkswagen was reduced to DM 3,950. It came down again, to DM 3,790, in August 1955, a level that it held till 1961.[7]

The standard Lloyd 600 was priced, between 1955 and 1958 at DM 3,680, a price which after 1955 undercut the larger and faster (albeit less fuel efficient and, some felt, more "old-fashioned") Volkswagen by a margin of barely more than DM 100. With the Lloyd Alexander, launched in 1957, there was no attempt to undercut the basic Volkswagen on price. The standard Lloyd Alexander was launched in 1957 with an advertised price of DM 4,060.[2] The Lloyd Alexander TS arrived in 1958 priced at DM 4,330.[2]

Sales analysis differentiating between the Lloyd 600 and the Lloyd Alexander has not been located, but combining the two models gives a sales volume between 1955 and 1961 of 176,524 units.[2] Sales dropped off sharply in 1960 which was the first full year of production for the manufacturer's own new Arabella model. The first NSU Prinz, very similar in terms of size and performance, and priced in 1958 at DM 3,739, managed a production volume of 94,549 units between 1958 and 1962.[8] By 1960 Volkswagen were producing more than 700,000 Beetles in a single year.[7] Their West German competitors were feeling the squeeze.

The Lloyd 600 was assembled in Australia by a company formed as joint venture between Carl Borgward and Laurence Hartnett in the late 1950s.[9] The car was introduced in December 1957 as the Lloyd-Hartnett and a total of 3000 cars were built before production ceased in 1962.[9]

• 
  Lloyd LS 600
• 
  Lloyd Alexander TS
  (The modified grille was standard on the TS. The wheels on this example were probably retrofitted more recently, however.)
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  Lloyd Alexander TS Kombi
• 
  Semi elliptical Lloyd Alexander TS grille
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  1959 Lloyd LK 600 van