Lion Rapide: The Find

Lion Rapide: The Find.

A tip from AMK reader Jeroen Schiffers: Think out of the box.

During a visit to an antique wholesaler in Drempt -Jeroen, clocks and timepieces are also collectors - he found a couple of two-wheelers and some loose engine blocks among all the things from the past in which not everything was better.

The motorcycle is a Lion Rapide.

Lion Rapide was a Belgian brand of bicycles, raid cars and motorcycles.

Real motorcycles were made from 1936 onwards, in which they held on to the Sachs built-in motors, now with 100 and 125 cc.

During the second world war, production was stopped, but the family developed a hydraulic telescopic fork during these years. In addition - a number of exporters - clandestinely - were delivered to order. Production has already been restarted in 1946. The German Sachs blocks obviously had to give way, they switched to British Villiers blocks, initially from 125 and 200 cc.

The Steveninck family immediately decided to tackle it in a big way: test riders were hired to test the new front fork and there were drivers who drove the series motorcycles in reliability rides.

Lion Rapide's success was largely due to the fact that they had kept to the "light" motorcycles; in the crisis years they could still be sold and also shortly after the war they were affordable and useful for many customers.

As far as we know, there are not many of these service bikes anymore. They sometimes still pop up on Belgian advertising sites. 

We conclude from this that this Lion Rapide will not be tough investment projects for the time being.

And whether the duvel is playing with it: We have also been promised some pictures of a motorcycle that apparently has been in a shop window for years where no one ever looks. An orphaned BMW ...

So be open to unexpected possibilities.

Because things that do not fit in someone's normal trading program are often friendly priced