Lloyd 300

The compact four-seater body was mounted on a tubular steel chassis with cross members and a platform of sheet steel. It consisted of a timber and plywood frame with an outer skin of synthetic leather. This avoided the need to use steel body panels which would have necessitated investment in heavy presses and complex dies with a high capital cost, and it reflected the acute steel shortage across western Europe at the time. According to one source the synthetic leather skin sometimes concealed a multitude of imperfections in the construction of the timber frame.^[3] Timber frame construction, which built on skills developed in nineteenth century carriage manufacturing, had been common in the 1920s, and manufacturers of small inexpensive cars not wishing to invest in costly presses and dies for stamping out steel body panels, notably DKW, had persisted with the technique and refined it through the 1930s. By the 1950s, however, some thought it anachronistic and the Lloyd 300 quickly acquired the soubriquet "Leukoplastbomber",^[4] an essentially untranslatable term referring to its "cute" shape and the "plasticky" character of the car's synthetic leather skin.^[1] Leukoplast is a brand of surgical tape; it was commonly used for quick repairs before duct tape became available and was allegedly suitable to repair the Lloyd 300.

The doors were hinged on the rear edge which facilitated access and egress. The windows in the doors slid open horizontally which avoided the need for costly and bulky winder mechanisms in the doors of what was, even by the standards of the time, a narrow car. The hood/bonnet lid was considered very narrow, and was broadened at the end of 1951. There was no opening hatch for the luggage locker at the back of the car, which instead had to be accessed by reaching behind the back seat.

By the end of 1952, when the Lloyd 300 made way for the Lloyd 400, 18,087 of the earlier cars had been produced. Production peaked in 1952 with 9,981 Lloyds produced. Nevertheless, by this time the West German small car market was dominated by Volkswagen who in 1952 produced 114,348 Volkswagen "Beetles".^[5]

When it was launched, in May 1950, the Lloyd came with an advertised price of DM 3,334,^[2] which was very much less than the DM 4,600 advertised price for a Beetle. Both cars were small, cramped and slow, but for most purposes the Lloyd 300 was a class smaller than the Beetle. Nevertheless, by 1952 the price for a Beetle had come down to DM 4,400 while the price of a Lloyd 300 was increased to DM 3,664 in February 1952. The Lloyd 300 was replaced at the start of 1953 by the broadly similar Lloyd 400, itself replaced by the more powerful but otherwise broadly similar Lloyd 600 in 1955.^[2] As the 1950 progressed the economies of scale available to Volkswagen from their higher production volumes enabled the company to reduce the price of the Beetle further, and the price differential between the little Lloyds and the Volkswagen eroded further year by year.^[2][5]