Swastika JAP
Adelaide invention
Recent generations associate the Swastika symbol with the Nazi Party and the subsequent grim memories, but the symbol itself dates back to the Bronze Age. In broad terms, the name translates to “well being” and came to symbolise good luck. Robert takes up the story: Thus it was logical for young James Wells, who had a motorcycle business in Adelaide which he called the Magill Road Motor Works, to name his product the Swastika Motor Cycle. These machines were assembled using parts derived from a number of sources and were gearless, with Mk1 Druid front forks and JAP engines. Unfortunately none of these early models appear to have survived. In June 1915, no doubt spurred on by the propaganda of the time, 23-year-old Wells enlisted in the Australian Imperial Forces to fight half a world away in the 10th Battalion. Possibly his motorcycle business wasn’t going so well due to the sheer number of young men leaving to fight in the Great War, I doubt if we’ll ever know the actual reasons. He was discharged for medical reasons in 1916 and sent back to Australia. Just prior to being shipped out, James sold his business to Louis (Lou) Archibald Borgelt, a 22 year old motor mechanic. Lou had been working at the Wyatt Emporium, owned by Mr Alf Garrood, Adelaide’s Norton agent. Lou soon put up his sign for “L.A. Borgelt Motor and Cycle Builder”, but retained the name Swastika for his motorcycles. He started off by building his own motorcycles in the workshop at the back of his shop on Magill Road. This quote came from Lou at the time of the 60th anniversary of his buying the business from James Wells: “In 1915 when business was bad generally, I left the Wyatt Motoria. My wage was 2.15.0 a week (by law). I bought a 4 gallon tin of petrol from Mr. Garrood and a quantity of cycle and motorcycle components from J.N. Taylor and Co. and set off and started business at 141 Magill Road Maylands. This shop had previously been a cycle and motorcycle business, of which I bought the workshop plant. I was 22 years of age then. I later purchased the property. I soon gained customers, I did the work personally. People whose work I did when employed came to me as regular customers.” Despite the shortage of materials, JAP engines were still being imported into Australia during the war, although with some difficulty it would seem. There is a common myth that all British production was dedicated to the war effort, but records show this was clearly not the case. It appears that sometime after 1918/1919 Lou decided to contract Healing in Melbourne to manufacture JAP-engined motorcycles branded Swastika and it was on one of these Healing-built bikes that Lou won a number of motorcycle events including the famous Sellicks Beach races.
Saving a Swastika
In 2007 I was given a photo of a Swastika JAP to help with my restoration of the bike I’d just purchased from David Vinall. The owner’s name was written on the photo – ‘Emil Kageler’. I decided to contact the Kagelers in the White Pages to see if any of them were connected to Emil Kageler and I found Emil’s son, Malcolm. Malcolm subsequently showed me a treasure trove of information – photos and diaries from the 1920s. Emil was a keen amateur photographer and a meticulous diary keeper. His diaries provide a fascinating insight into motoring of the time, as well as social history in general. Emil was a friend of Lou Borgelt and played cards with him, they also went to the same church in the city. Emil was courting a young lady named Edna Ruge (later to become his wife) who lived at Mt Barker initially, but then later moved with her family to Hahndorf after a bushfire at Mt Barker. In one
entry he reports doing the trip from Hahndorf to his home at Elizabeth St. Evandale in 35 minutes, a distance of about 19 miles on rough winding roads – good going by even today’s standards. In another entry he mentions that it was raining so bad one night coming home, that the slipping belt caused him to stop at the Bridgewater Inn and stay the night. Lou Borgelt’s records show that by 1921 Lou was just buying in Swastika-badged Healing-made motorcycles complete (and racing them). Emil’s bike, registered as 14870 however was built using the earlier Taylor’s frame components and was one of the Borgelt-built bikes. It was also fitted with a 1918 date marked JAP engine (the JAP model year numbering starting in September of the previous year, i.e. 1917). It could have been a used motorcycle when Emil bought it, although the photos show it’s in excellent condition. Petrol was expensive during the war years and from 1939 onwards the bike didn’t get ridden. The Swastika sat under a tarpaulin in the shed until Emil took it back to Borgelts in 1946 to sell it on commission. Emil dragged it out of shed, dusted it off, borrowed some oil from a neighbour, started it up (after only a couple of kicks reports the diary entry) and rode it up and down Elizabeth St (unregistered) before wheeling it over to Lou Borgelt’s shop on Magill Rd. It took 3 years to sell. It would have been considered antiquated at the time, not many people would have been interested in a belt drive bike. Eventually it sold for 25 pounds in 1949. Emil never owned a car, right up until his death in 1995 aged 97. A local eccentric called Hugh Lillywhite purchased the bike from Lou Borgelt’s shop in 1949. He had a small farm at Scotts Creek and would bolt a wooden box sidecar onto the bike, strap two calves onto it and then take them to market, a distance of over 27 km, with livestock on board! Hugh would turn up to church on the Swastika with his sister in the sidecar, (hopefully not the same wooden box used for the livestock) but a wicker chair he’s reputed to have had. The Lillywhites were obviously a colorful family; they even had a family orchestra. Lance Kain bought the Swastika from Hugh Lillywhite in early 1957, only a few months after the formation of the Vintage and Veteran Motorcycle Club of SA (VMCCSA). The club was formed in late 1956 and the hunt was on to find old bikes. The club constitution at the time even listed the order in which bikes were to be offered to club members once discovered (if not wanted by the finder). Lance wouldn’t do more than 50mph on clubs runs, as he was worried about the state of the bike at the time, in particular the loose spokes in the wheels! At that stage it was fitted with a 1,000cc JAP, but after an engine seizure in the 1960s a pair of 770cc barrels and pistons were fitted. When Lou Borgelt discovered that members of the club had some of his old machines he invited Lance and other club members (Lance’s friend Harold Rosenhain and Jack Kaines who also owned a Swastika) over to his place to talk about the Swastika JAP. He pulled old Swastika JAP tank transfers down from a loft in his workshop and gave them to the members. Lou was obviously keen to rekindle the memories of his first venture in the motor business.
Film stars
One of the highlights of Lance’s ownership of the Swastika was appearing in the movie “The Sundowners” starring Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr. Warner Brothers decided to make the movie in Quorn, in South Australia’s mid-North, and sent an agent ahead to organise the townships and buildings for the sets and to get extras on board. One of his jobs was to organise a group of half a dozen men on 1920s motorcycles to act as shearers. Franz contacted Murray Mitchell, a motorcycle dealer at Parkside, who happened to be a member of the club and before long a group of members and their bikes had been recruited. Club members recruited were: Lance Kain, George Baldwin, Harold Rosenhain (who always took a movie camera with him wherever he went), Jack Kaines (who later went on to set up the Birdwood Mill Motor Museum in the Adelaide hills – now the National Motor Museum), Murray Mitchell (4 cyl Henderson with sidecar), Warren Hicks (4 cyl Ace). It was arranged for them to go to Quorn for a week with the bikes. They piled the bikes onto a 3 ton truck owned by Jack Kaines and headed off for Quorn. There was no preciousness about how you treated a vintage bike back then. George Baldwin and Lance drove the truck up and back, both being truck drivers for a profession. The group was paid 5 pounds a day each and another 5 pounds a day for each bike, a lot of money back then. It was almost Christmas 1958 and was “bloody hot!”. The Swastika used to be hard to start when it got hot, so Lance would keep it running between shots. The bitumen was covered
with red sand for period effect and the Austral Hotel (at Quorn) on the street corner had new signage put up for the movie to make it “The Drovers Arms”. When shooting was finished they’d go to the Transcontinental Hotel (also in Quorn) for free beer. Lance can still see Mitchum now in the front bar of the Transcontinental when he said “the best god damn beer in the whole wide world”, they filled his glass up and down it would go again. The make-up staff had to pull Mitchum’s corset tight to camouflage his beer gut. Lots of footage was taken, but the group was disappointed when they saw the movie when it was released: “you only had to blink and you would have missed the footage with the club members in it”. There is scene where, as a group, they all ride into town on pushbikes, cars, horses and the motorcycles. Lance takes the lead position on the Swastika. You can spot him in the beige moleskin trousers, red check shirt and white straw hat. When I bought the bike it was complete, had been cosmetically restored, but was not running. After getting it home and inspecting it more closely I could see that the ravages of time, and hauling cows, had taken its toll. The frame was bent, the petrol tank leaked, there were almost no teeth left on the clutch sprocket, the belt rim was held together with paint and the pistons had different gudgeon pin heights! The bike has been stripped now and almost everything repaired. With the photo of Emil on the bike as a guide, a new front guard was made up to replicate the original, and a horn and speedo assembly obtained to replace parts that went missing over the years. The petrol tank was unsoldered, tin-plated then reassembled. The project is well on its way, and will be repainted to the original scheme. The last piece of the puzzle is finding a photo, or sample decal, of the emblem between the words “Swastika” and “JAP”. The truth be told, I’ve probably enjoyed exploring the history of the bike and uncovering the adventures of past owners as much as I have restoring the bike itself.