Lancashire Lantern

Lawrence "Lawrie" Bond - Pioneer of the three-wheeler dies at 67

 

 

Mr Lawrence Bond, the Preston man who designed the famous three wheeler Bond Minicar, has died at he age of 67.

The familiar 80 miles per gallon three wheeler was designed in Longridge shortly after the second world war while petrol was still rationed.

Mr Bond, who was born and educated in Preston, had a workshop in Longridge and built the first rough prototype for himself before realising its commercial possibilities and selling the design to another Preston motor company, Sharp's Commercials.

The car went into production in 1948 and more than 100,000 models were turned out at the factory in Ribbleton Lane, Preston. Mr Bond did design work on the production model after he sold his ideas to the company but then left the firm to work on a new idea, the Bond Scooter, which never really got off the ground.

But he was called in again by the firm in the early sixties to help on the design of a new four wheeler sports car, the Equipe.

Publicity

Several Formula Three racing cars were produced at his Longridge workshops and Mr Bond himself was well-known as a Formula Three driver in the early fifties.

Later he moved south and spent some time working on a three wheeler sports car, the Berkeley, which received wide publicity when it was first produced in 1956.

Afterwards, he returned north to take a pub near Bowes in North Yorkshire where he combined the role of freelance designer with that of publican.

At the time of his death, he was working on a design for a new kind of boat, but the Bond Minicar was his biggest succes and at a cost of a little over £100 originally he paved the way for a new concept in cheap motoring.

Taken from the Lancashire Evening Post, 5 Sept 1974