1951 Trojan Minimotor ‘Gearless Cycle Outboard’ – New-Old-Stock
on Restored 1951 Phillips Ladies Bicycle
A New-Old-Stock engine, subsequently restored and MOT’d.
In good running order, but not yet run in.
This is one of the nicest Mini-Motors I’ve come across.
It’s a practical machine for regular cyclemotoring, as well as to display at shows and rallies.
This Mini-Motor has a good story attached to it. The previous owner’s neighbour brought the engine home some years ago in a box that proclaimed ‘Gearless Cycle Outboard’ and asked what it was.
After an explanation, he promised to fit it to a bike, but never did and, eventually, it found its way next door and was totally stripped, restored and fitted to this excellent Phillips bicycle.
However, having restored the bicycle and engine, the previous owner decided he was too frightened to ride it. So, to this day, it remains a new-old-stock 57-year-old Mini-Motor that has only been run a few times.
Both cycle and engine are in superb condition throughout.
It’s now been through our workshops; it is DVLA registered, MOT’d until January 2010, and ready for use.
To avoid having to answer numerous identical emails from optimistic number plate vultures, it was first registered in 2004. I have a copy of the V5 which says non-transferable reg. The V5C needs to be applied for as the previous owner lost it, but I assume it will say the same.
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Phillips was one of the leading cycle exporters in the years following WW2.
It was Great Britain’s major export drives of the late forties and early fifties that contributed greatly to getting the country back on its feet.
But with so many new vehicles being exported, very few were available for the home market.
As a result, cycle-attachment engines such as the Mini Motor were designed to help motorize our population of cyclists.
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The Mini Motor was one of the best-known of the British clip-on engines, and was introduced in Great Britain in 1949. Though rarely referred to as such, the Instruction Book for the Mk 5 model (the last of them) describes it as a ‘Gearless Cycle Outboard.’
The Trojan Minimotor was originally designed by Vincent Piatti in 1946 as a unit to power portable lathes; he saw its advantages as a cycle-attachment and introduced it in Italy as the ‘Mini Motore.’
Five models were produced in Britain at Trojan’s Croydon factory, from the Mark I in 1949 to the Mark V in 1955. The improvement for 1951 was a decompressor added to the cylinder head to aid both starting and stopping.
The engine sat above the bicycle rear wheel, which it drove with a friction-roller on the left-hand end of the crankshaft. On the right, there was a Wipac flywheel magneto, and between this and the roller, a crankcase with bobweight flywheel and a horizontal iron barrel. An alloy head closed this, and the capacity was 49.9 cc for the conventional two stroke unit. The petrol tank went over the engine with the number plate fitted behind it. A means of lifting the roller clear of the tyre was provided .
The unit could drive a bicycle at 30 mph, which was probably as fast as you’d want to go on a normal cycle under normal road conditions. In a postwar Britain with a shortage of new vehicles, motorists found them ideal for short trips, commuting to the station or the office, or to the shops to fill up the front basket. Some were even fitted to tandems, where they proved equal to the task of hauling two people along at 20mph.
Text from the Cyclemaster Museum – http://cyclemaster.wordpress.com/page-13-the-minimotor/
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LOCATION: Brighton, E.Sussex, United Kingdom
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Please feel free to email or phone with any comments or questions…
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VEHICLE CONDITION: Vintage vehicles are wonderful beasts
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You will need basic mechanical skills (or a local mechanic) to use one on a regular basis.
Two-strokes invariably need basic servicing before starting them,
if they’ve been left to stand for more than 3 weeks or so.
These are rare vehicles whose values are not necessarily based on running order.
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