Ariel Owners Motorcycle Club

Found this picture on the net.
It's what Germans call a 'Beute' motorcycle .
Looks like a 500 VG ?
Some loony printed a name across it, funny, as ownership of images ends after 70 years....

Has to be an impressed 38/39/40 VG or VH. Can't read the engraving on the timing cover.It has the central tool box knob marking the years. Looks to be as new. It's a beaut all right.
Wade

Visually, one of the best. And the 'look' that started me looking at Ariels.

One day...

Interesting....looks like a twin port 1939 year model to me (has auxiliary fork springs). Some photo enhancement reveals the timing case most likely says RH 500.
It cannot really be later than mid 1939 as it would not have been exported from the UK after war broke out. Maybe it was not 'captured' but just requisitioned / impressed as Wade says.

My 1939 VH could have ended up being used in a similar way. Mine was dispatched from the Ariel Works to a Mr Gutjhar, Germany on 23rd August 1939...it was black and chrome and listed as having a valenced front mudguard and a 3.25 inch front tyre. Unfortunately for Mr Gutjhar he did not receive his new Ariel It did not make it out of the UK, got returned to the factory and went to the 'Ministry of Supply' six days later. I wonder whether he got his money refunded!!

alan.moore wrote:It cannot really be later than mid 1939 as it would not have been exported from the UK after war broke out.

I agree on 1939 VH with valanged mudguard but England was already at war in 1938 when Germany entered Ostria.

A friend here has a proven spy Ariel who came here in 1939 to report on the situation but leaft the Ariel and went sivilian when things got to hot, ( he swapped the Ariel for civilian clothing with a farmer who'm put the Ariel in the haystack for 6 years).

I can never figure out how Ariels made in 1940 were allowed to be shipped overseas. There must have been a government dispensation allowing shipment. I have a 1940 VG shipped in June 1940 to Vancouver, British Columbia.
Wade

wade.edwards wrote:I can never figure out how Ariels made in 1940 were allowed to be shipped overseas.

Wars start slowly, in June 1940 they where still thinking, "he is not gone do that, is he?" , like Putin is doing now.