Browsing through ebay a couple of days back I came across this
Svalan for sale in Poland. It's a marque I had never come across before and if it was brought over to the UK there'd be little chance of seeing two in the same place.
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| Svalan 'Lyx' offered on ebay. |
Turns out Svalan is a Swedish marque which commenced production of autocycles shortly before World War Two in the town of Falun. Post-war they re-commenced production and produced mopeds, scooters, smaller two stroke motorcycles and four strokes using the British Panther 'lightweight' 250 and 350 engines.
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| 1955 Svalan brochure cover page. |
The lightweight Panther engine would seem an unusual choice as its British reputation was as a solid, if slightly dull, workhorse. However in those postwar days supply was limited and it could well be that manufacturers selling complete four stroke engines were few and far between. There was a 250cc rigid framed model, the 'Matcher' which also used the Dowty forks and Lucas lighting as fitted to early post war Panthers. The later plunger framed 350cc model was the Lyx, for this model NSU forks were fitted along with Hella lighting. This appears to be the model currently offered on ebay. It's a nice looking bike and even with the £300 odd pounds it would probably cost to get over to the UK is not terribly expensive even if also not a bargain. But hurry up, only two days left......
Some Svalan links:
Svalan page on 'The Pantherlair'
Panther Owners Club page on Panther derivatives
Svalan page from Mats Berglind
Jonases page on Svalans
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