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I see from a link in a chat line dated May 2013 that someone had a Motocart and the original maintenance manual which he would be prepared to copy.I also see that your family used to build the Motocart
But let me put you in the picture: I am originally form Bridlington, East Yorkshire and my interest in the Motocart goes back to about 1947 when Bridlington Corporation bought one of the early Motocarts. This replaced a carthorse called “Doll’ which my father bought. Doll was a chestnut Clydesdale mare and she worked for us for many years, mainly hauling turnips and other crops from the fields to feed our small herd of Ayrshire Guernseys, probably outlasted the Motocart! Fast forward about 20 years to 1968 and I am now in the Farm Machinery business, managing an International Harvester franchise in Beverley. Things weren’t going very well and the owners were trying every angle to find something we could sell. Through their connections with British Leyland they found a stash of about 35 of the last batch of Motocarts, which I think had been built by Thorneycrofts. They were parked in the sort of catacombs under Liverpool Street Station in London and we went to have a look at them. Finding them in reasonable condition we got one up to Yorkshire and I had it on my stand at the Driffield Show in July. It aroused a bit of interest but there was always the problem that you couldn’t licence a Motocart as a tractor. Because it could carry a load it had to be licensed as a truck and the extra cost put farmers off. Anyway, in September of that year I re-located to South Africa to open a Company for the Dutch Lely Company and British Lely. At the time I thought that the Motocart would maybe be viable in South Africa but I was so busy trying to get Lely South Africa going that I shelved the thought. There was at that time a locally built tractor designed for the African market. Called the ‘Tinkabi’ it was built in Swaziland by a guy called Alan Catterick and for a while it looked as though it might fly but it eventually died the death.
Since then, I am now retired but still make a living as a journalist with a column in South African Farmer’s Weekly and a monthly column in the UK magazine ‘profi’ The Professional Farm Machinery Magazine. I am also on the R&D team of the Company that I used to work for, as a consultant.
Recently in the African agricultural press there has been a number of articles about a tractor designed in Uganda. Looking at the article http://www.observer.ug/education/41905-mv-mulimi-makes-its-debut-could-surpass-kiira-ev and with 47 years experience of the African market, I think this design misses by a mile and is nowhere as practical or viable as the original Motocart.
My plan is to approach my old company to see if they would be interested in resurrecting the original Motocart, possibly with a diesel engine instead of the JAP
The best way to do this would be to acquire an original and ship it to South Africa or possibly try to find someone who has the original drawings. Do you think you could help?
Best wishes
Joe Spencer
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