Rigid 350 for sale

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TonyBaxter
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Rigid 350 for sale

Post by TonyBaxter »

Hi all, reluctantly going to look at selling my 350 (NG I guess) as I need some cash for other projects etc. Very reluctant sale, and indeed if I can't attract a decent price I'll keep it and go rob a bank instead. (Hmm, not sure that would work nowadays considering it's mainly automated machinery in the local branch!).
As many of you will remember, it turns out to be a fairly standard circa 1947 (ish) 350 NG. The engine number I believe is correct for a W/NG, and the bike was repatriated from India some years ago. Whilst there it gained a W/NG frame number, but is definitely NOT a W/NG. It wears an age-related plate, and is currently on the road.

Bad bits mainly are, (as well as wrong frame number mentioned previously), tank panel with no instruments present, an Indian Mikarb, (Indian Mikuni), appallingly rubbish headlight beam, (if you ride at night at all - I do), and when I replaced the damaged rear hub the wheel was accidentally laced wrongly and the rim is off to one side by quite a bit. Oh, and the bike is very tatty looking and a little incontinent.

Good bits - despite having a tankful of E10 back in October, she still starts first or second kick, the carb seems to work exceedingly well. She has a fully rewound Magdyno courtesy of FTW and works fine. Solid state regulator. Forks were rebuilt a few years ago, most internals including stantions are brand new from Drags. Even with the rear wheel being offset, she rides very well, I thoroughly enjoyed a 60 mile romp through the sweeping bends of Hampshire and Surrey on our VMCC section run in October last year, the handling is lovely, she's a pleasure to ride.

The bike really deserves a bit of a cosmetic clean up and that rear wheel being re-laced correctly. Any questions please ask. I'll be wanting £3,500 which I think is fair for a rigid bike of that age. Like I say, I don't really want to sell her.
Bike is located in Woking, Surrey.
Granddaughter not included!
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Akumar
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Re: Rigid 350 for sale

Post by Akumar »

Dear Tony and fellow enthusiasts,

Attached are photos of my 1951 NH and 1945 Triumph 3HW (also imported from India) and 1950 Norton Big 4 (imported from Egypt). This probably is not the correct forum but it would be interesting to see photos of Ariels and other British bikes re-imported from India and other former British colonies. I am quite interested in knowing just how many British singles were exported to India and other colonies. This number has to be several thousands because these singles (especially the BSA B31) keep coming for sale even today. I have a small collection of bikes in India also and I added a photo of few singles I have purchased (and kept) there in last few years. Are there any estimates or records of just how many of these bikes went to former colonies? Or any articles written about this topic?
1951 Ariel NH 350cc.JPG
1945 Triumph 3HW.JPG
1950 Norton Big 4.jpg
1950 Norton Big 4.jpg (68.82 KiB) Viewed 1047 times
1946 AJS 16M 350cc.jpg
1954 BSADSC04742.JPG
50 NG, 53 VB, 58 Colt
TonyBaxter
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Re: Rigid 350 for sale

Post by TonyBaxter »

Hi Akumar, mine was supposedly sent to India as part of a government Army contract in 1944 during the war. That is the frame number is part of such a contract, but the bike itself isn't! I don't know if the club would have such accurate records.
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Roger Gwynn
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Re: Rigid 350 for sale

Post by Roger Gwynn »

We don't have the information but it is all in the despatch books however collating it would take several years. I can tell you from the hours that I have spent with the books that India does not feature very often, in fact my impression is that the DEI (Dutch East Indies, now Malaysia) bought more bikes than India in the 1930's. I know of 3 dealers in India but one problem in counting the number of exports to India is that most bikes were despatched via an export company called Hales Brothers who also shipped to other destinations. The principal export countries were Czeckoslovakia, Finland, Denmark, Nederland and Italy; all big customers, secondly would be South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. In later years, the 1950's USA took a fair number but very few before that. I know of 63 countries that Ariels were sent to.

Clive Jones has compiled figures for the 1931 Slopers. Briefly, there were 2880 bikes made, 55% UK, Nederland 6.3%, Italy 5.5, Czeckoslovakia 5, Poland 4.6, Suisse 2.9, Japan 2.4, Austria 2.3, Germany 2.2, Denmark 2.1, the rest went to 42 other countries with India taking .07% or 2 machines. Bear in mind that as with the USA, popularity of Ariels and imported bikes varied over the years for a number of reasons. For instance there were massive numbers of exports to Finland and Denmark in 1953 due a large reduction in import duty on motorcycles.
Roger Gwynn, Membership Secretary, curator of the Machine Register and the works drawings. Director of Draganfly Motorcycles, Craven Equipment and Supreme Motorcycles mostly retired.
TonyBaxter
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Re: Rigid 350 for sale

Post by TonyBaxter »

But sadly no-one interested in buying my bike.
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Re: Rigid 350 for sale

Post by klaus gerhard »

In addition to what Roger mentioned about the sales figures of slopers. I bought a very nice book from Mr Milan Veselý, "Nas Motocyklovy Dovoz" (means our motorcycle imports) last year about the motorcycle market in Tschechoslovakia from 1895 to 1964. Apart from a very nice number of period photographs it mentions the number of imported bikes into the country. For me it was very interesting to read that the highest number of bikes of a single company between 1919 and 1939 was... yes Ariel with a total of 4300. A pity that the book is only available in czech language (which I cannot read nor understand) but looking at photographs and tables gives a good view.
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