Ariel Owners Motorcycle Club

Vincent,
You have posted some very fascinating W/NG pictures very nice!
Amongst them a 1944(?) colour slide or negative. Do you know the origin of this photograph? Would this be a nice example of ‘Photoshopping’ or is it realy a period picture? If so did you also noticed the 30's style timing side cover?

Regards, Paul

Hello Paul, yes I did notice it and for a moment I thought of not including it.
But then I saw the '1944' on the edge of the slide.
I have not seen this picture before (if this means anything at all!) and the bike looks very original, exept maybe this timing cover.

Strange that it's a 500 silenser with extra clamp and hanging from a square cut strip, i think it's a photochop becouse the clips (kickstart and rockercaps) are missing.

Hmmmm, yes, it still is doubtfull.
The passengers footrests look like the normal ones but without rubber, W/NG ones are a bit hollow on the underside + part number cast in.
Oil lines have jubilee clips, I think they should be those crimped on ones.
Perhaps a very clever 1944 lookalike picture ?

The motorcycle is used but the bags are not waxed, that's the first thing a soldier has to do to keep his gear dry.

Isn't it odd that the only rubber in evidence is the least-useful clutch arm rubber?

I thought the RH footrest looked odd ie it looks like a LH one and would foul the kickstarter.
I think it is a post war rebuild but a good one.

Ian

Then afterall the question remains;
Who has gone through the trouble of framing this picture into a lookalike 1944 Kodak Eastman slide ?


more rubber: kneegrips

Exactly that is what intrigued me! It all looked so genuine, not only the bike itself but even the cloth on which the bike stands looks like real militairy canvas. And on the right side of the slide the numbers comes over the actual picture... The one thing maybe (?) which remains is the lack of real patina of an old slide like scratches or so.

I'm fairly sure this is not an original colour slide from 1944. Besides the details of the bike itself, as far as I know, de Kodachrome 35mm never had their date printed on them (also, it is very "convinient" that the date is on the slide).
Furthermore, the colours are to "modern" to be an original colour slide, the colour films for consumers were fairly new in those days. Last but not least, it looks like the bike is "posing" before a curtain wall which was previously nicely folded. I never saw pictures like that from that period other than official works photographs....