This rather strange-looking machine has not lost its rear wheels. It is a three-wheeler – and was an extremely successful municipal vehicle in the years following World War I.
The Lacre Motor Car Company was established in 1902 in Long Acre, Covent Garden, London. The Lacre name is a contraction of Long Acre. The company was initially set up to build cars, but by 1904 it had developed a 25cwt 16hp van and thereafter became known for its commercial vehicles. In 1910 Lacre moved to a new factory in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, and built a range of bus chassis. After World War I, Lacre moved into the manufacture of municipal motor vehicles including tipping wagons, high-access tower wagons, gulley emptying and cleaning machines and road sweeping machines.
The Lacre ‘L’ Type road sweeper was probably its best-known product. It was designed by J. S. Drewry (of whom more later) in 1912. It was a three-wheeled machine weighing 1 ton 13cwt (1,676kg). All the wheels were fitted with solid rubber tyres, the two front wheels with single tyres and the rear wheel with twin tyres. Midway between front and rear axles below the body was a brush, mounted within a semi-circular brush guard, rotated by a shaft driven from a separate gearbox, itself driven by a chain drive enclosed in a steel casing. Lacre claimed that “suspension of the brush provides an exceptionally clean and wide sweep, and the position of the driver behind the brush enables him to easily view the operation”. The machine was also fitted with spraying gear to clean the road surface. Water was fed to this by a gear-driven pump from a 100-gallon water tank in the front of the chassis. The brush could be exchanged for a scraper, squeegee or snow plough. Power for the whole assembly came from a water-cooled 2,687cc 4-cylinder Dorman engine via a leather-faced cone clutch to the gearbox, which provided two forward speeds and reverse. Operating speed was between 5 and 10mph with a top speed of 20mph. The final drive was by roller chain to the rear wheel.
Although the name Lacre may not be well-known today, another two names may be. Two of Lacre’s employees, its general manager Harry Shelvoke and its chief engineer James Sidney Drewry, the designer of the ‘L’ Type, developed a 2-ton delivery lorry known as the Freighter. When their creation was rejected by Lacre, they left in 1922 to from Shelvoke and Drewry.
By 1928 the Lacre was in trouble; the Letchworth factory was sold and the company wound up. A restructured company, Lacre Lorries Ltd, was formed in Kings Cross in London. By 1936 the company relocated again to Welwyn Garden City. The factory was requisitioned during World War II and production suspended until 1947, when it resumed to make sweepers only. By 1952 these were simply sweeper bodies on Bedford chassis. Production ended in the 19080s.
Image displayed with the kind permission of the Haynes Motor Museum.
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