ECONOMYNEXT – The 1953 British motorcycle was more than just a reliable workhorse. It was a symbol of my father, Lenin Lindberg’s, identity. To him, it was his most treasured possession, one he hoped would be passed down to the next generation.
The throaty growl of the single-cylinder 350cc machine had the gravitas of a military parade commander. The entire neighbourhood would know when he left for, or returned home from, work.
The beat of the bike was also the warning for my brother and me to rush home from the nearby playground.
Although he later shifted to more modern motorcycles and cars after the liberalisation of imports in 1978, the Velocette MAC remained his beloved machine, a family heirloom worthy of being passed down through the generations.
Restoring the family faithful became my project after he passed away in January 2018. After decades of languishing in a garage, the machine looked like a candidate for the scrapyard. The tyres had perished and the rubber mouldings had become brittle.
Transporting the corroded cycle from his home at Kadawatha to mine in Colombo for restoration was an emotional journey. It brought back memories of the joyous rides during the late 1960s and 1970s, when Sri Lanka faced severe import restrictions and food and clothing were in short supply.
This was a bike that transported a family of four — sometimes all at once. Wearing helmets was not mandatory then. The black and chrome Velocette had even been used to carry accident victims to hospital in an era when even owning a bicycle was a luxury.
Unlike modern-day vehicles, it had no locking mechanism, but there was never any fear that the 350-pound (160-kilo) beast would be nicked. It took real skill to kick-start it, let alone steady it without risking grievous bodily harm to oneself.
In maintaining a vehicle during import restrictions was not easy. Improvisation was key at that time, and the Velocette bore plenty of evidence of my father’s ingenuity in overcoming the import controls of the day.
The seat had been reupholstered many times with leftover plastic sheets, rigifoam, and sponges from freight cartons of the late 1970s. Three-inch wire nails had been used to hold the upholstery in place, with pieces of wood under a thick metal base.
All that had to be stripped off carefully and replaced with a more professional job that was fairly close to the original seat.
The tail light of the motorcycle was fashioned from a plastic jar lid of the then popular Marketing Department mixed-fruit jam.
The main challenge at the start of the restoration was finding tools made to imperial measurements, which had been abandoned nearly five decades ago with the shift to metric standards globally.
However, thanks to the generosity of Ravi Ekanayake, General Manager at Mercantile Investments’ Motor Division, who lent me a pristinely preserved set of Britool socket wrenches — a legacy of his late, motor-enthusiast father — the restoration became far easier.
After nearly two months of painstaking work, mostly by the highly skilled painter I. Samson, the bike now looks as good as I can remember.
When I showed the final result to my uncle, Jayantha, a retired Deputy Inspector-General, it brought him to tears, not because I had done a bad restoration, but because it reminded him of his brother, who had also been his guardian since they lost their father, Jones Alexander Jayasinghe, at an early age.
Amal Jayasinghe
October 16, 2025
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