My 1955 Ariel VB 600. One previous owner.
Posted: Sun May 29, 2022 3:39 pm
Hi
I thought I would just post about my Ariel VB 600 1955.
I bought it from the original owner in 1978 in North Wales.
I still own it so it is a two owner vehicle.
As a very young man I rode it as it was.
Things like a license, MOT, insurance, tax, didn't seem a necessity. I got convicted of the lack of all four twice!
Apparently the Police car of choice, the Mini van, can out run a 600 VB. Dam, I nearly got away.
I visited Dragonfly twice when they were in London and started to restore the Ariel as I was old enough to have a license and had bought a Suzuki 185.
In 1985 I returned the Ariel to the road and re registered it. KSV 298.
Myself and my wife (girlfriend at the time) attended various Ariel rallies at Oswestry and Norwich during the late 1980's.
At the last one at Norwich my wife got very bad food poisoning and was admitted to an isolation ward in a hospital in Norwich.
I went back to the rally and told various club officers and then becoming ill myself also got isolated in hospital.
We were diagnosed with E.coli. My wife was on a drip and we were there until Thursday after the rally.
I returned to the showground to find the bike had been thrown on it's side in the bushes at the end of the ground and my tent and all our belongings gone. Public health interviewed us in the hospital and three months late back in North Wales. We were extremely ill. I had a letter from them six months later saying the had investigated the caterer at the rally and found a lot of inadequacies and they had to comply with many action points but could not prosecuted due to lack of evidence.
I wonder what the last person thought as they left the rally with one bike left. My wife lost two stone. We were very ill indeed.
We then left the club and have never re joined.
The Ariel VB is very original as it only had one owner before me. It runs very well on all it's original parts, carb, gear box, engine, magneto, dynamo, regulator, forks, tank, horn and right had side hooter switch in the original bars.
Motorcycles have come and gone way way too many to list but the Ariel stayed.
Turn the petrol on, tickle the carb, half choke half advance and quarter throttle and hoof it and bang bang bang away she goes.
It has never let me down, I've always got home.
I saved it from being turned into cat food cans back in 1978. It's nearly 70 years old, runs better than I do now.
Without me it wouldn't exist, as I've said I'm the second owner.
I'm thinking of selling it after all these years, it's time for a new chapter in it's history.
I do wonder how many 1955 VB 600's there are in this world that left the factory.
Will the next owner have it for 44 years?
Thanks for wading through.
Regards
Nic M.
I thought I would just post about my Ariel VB 600 1955.
I bought it from the original owner in 1978 in North Wales.
I still own it so it is a two owner vehicle.
As a very young man I rode it as it was.
Things like a license, MOT, insurance, tax, didn't seem a necessity. I got convicted of the lack of all four twice!
Apparently the Police car of choice, the Mini van, can out run a 600 VB. Dam, I nearly got away.
I visited Dragonfly twice when they were in London and started to restore the Ariel as I was old enough to have a license and had bought a Suzuki 185.
In 1985 I returned the Ariel to the road and re registered it. KSV 298.
Myself and my wife (girlfriend at the time) attended various Ariel rallies at Oswestry and Norwich during the late 1980's.
At the last one at Norwich my wife got very bad food poisoning and was admitted to an isolation ward in a hospital in Norwich.
I went back to the rally and told various club officers and then becoming ill myself also got isolated in hospital.
We were diagnosed with E.coli. My wife was on a drip and we were there until Thursday after the rally.
I returned to the showground to find the bike had been thrown on it's side in the bushes at the end of the ground and my tent and all our belongings gone. Public health interviewed us in the hospital and three months late back in North Wales. We were extremely ill. I had a letter from them six months later saying the had investigated the caterer at the rally and found a lot of inadequacies and they had to comply with many action points but could not prosecuted due to lack of evidence.
I wonder what the last person thought as they left the rally with one bike left. My wife lost two stone. We were very ill indeed.
We then left the club and have never re joined.
The Ariel VB is very original as it only had one owner before me. It runs very well on all it's original parts, carb, gear box, engine, magneto, dynamo, regulator, forks, tank, horn and right had side hooter switch in the original bars.
Motorcycles have come and gone way way too many to list but the Ariel stayed.
Turn the petrol on, tickle the carb, half choke half advance and quarter throttle and hoof it and bang bang bang away she goes.
It has never let me down, I've always got home.
I saved it from being turned into cat food cans back in 1978. It's nearly 70 years old, runs better than I do now.
Without me it wouldn't exist, as I've said I'm the second owner.
I'm thinking of selling it after all these years, it's time for a new chapter in it's history.
I do wonder how many 1955 VB 600's there are in this world that left the factory.
Will the next owner have it for 44 years?
Thanks for wading through.
Regards
Nic M.