Sq4 finally completed...

[Brian.Fosh]

Well it took a few months longer than i expected while the tank was rechromed by S&T.. but they did a great job, even repairing a couple of leaks that surfaced during the process. I finally finished painting it at the weekend and fitted it yesterday.
So.. Job done... Just need to get it re registered now.

Roll on the summer eh?

Brian

[Steven.Carter]

Looks lovely Brian

[simon.holyfield]

Looks great!

[Vincent.vanGinneke]

Stunning, very well done , you will do many happy miles on it!

[roger.fellows]

Look!! No drips. Well done Brian, looks great.

[paul.jameson]

What a lovely job you have done - just don't succumb to the temptation to take it out when there is salt on the roads.

[Brian.Fosh]

Thanks folks.

Alas, not having ridden a bike now for over a year... This is going out come rain or high water! .. That said I suspect the delay though to the DVLA may well keep my temptation in check.

Regards Brian.

[MARK.WALSH]

Brian
the bike looks fantastic, keep us all posted on how she performs as you run her in
Mark

[Brian.Fosh]

Hi all,

Well, it's been a couple of months and the registration process is ongoing.

I contacted the VMCC a week before Christmas and they responded quick. inspecting and issuing a statement of search by mid January.

Distracted while I settle in to a new job, I only got around to posting off the paperwork to the last week.

I researched the original registration number through the West Yorkshire archive and they provided me with certificated copy of the original entry showing it went to the same dealership as in the Ariel dispatch register, "Charles Sidney Ltd" in Bradford. The dealership manager, Major Scatchard, has long since died but his Son Malcolm sent me some great photos of the dealership from around 1950. (He managed the dealership after his father in the sixties and was very informative, sending me a few photos of a young Frankie Howerd in a DB1). It turns out that Scatchard worked with David Brown in WW2 on Tank gearbox improvements and the Charles Sidney dealership sold Aston Martins when David Brown took over... but were also very active selling motorcycles.

The Charles Sidney name was a WW1 era dealership resurrected in name to sell the cars, but Charles Sidney himself was a quite a Motorcycle competitor and engineer n his day...

Any way... The days are getting longer, the Salt on the roads is being washed away by the rain.... and I my new route to work is 35 miles of B-roads through some fantastic, if rather pot-hole riddled, rolling parts of the Chiltern hills at both sunrise and sunset...

Roll on the spring eh?

Brian

[Brian.Fosh]

Just to add to my last post, restoring this mk1 provided me these interesting by-the-by discoveries as i progressed.

The lady in the Aston with Frankie Howerd in the Charles Sidney showroom is Peggy Cochrane, seen in ths Pathe clip from nearly 20 years earlier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i4rRSiZEIY

And Chas Sidney was himself quite a motorcycling competition success prior to his death in the early thirties, racking up a sizable trophy collection.
The main trophy at the front reads "the Dyson Shield" which traces to a hill climb trophy with the Bradford MCC

Brian