Ariel Owners Motorcycle Club

In the latest Cheval on page 8 there is a interesting Ariel.
Seen dangling in ropes is a swingarm Ariel with what looks like a VHA engine.


Upon second look this Ariel has the new for 1953 earles swingarm front fork.

The article by Mike Priestner tells that this Ariel was bought in parts in 1948.
The only part that could be from that time is possibly the BA gearbox.
So... is this Ariel one of the pre production and never marketed 1953 earles forked Ariels ?
I'd like to know more about it ! is Mike on this forum?

Only other time I have seen a Ariel with this earles front fork was at the annual of 1998.
That one was restored in bright Red-Orange and turned up around lunch time that weekend.
But maybe I am mistaken as the text below says that this orange Ariel surfaced in 2004, bit of a mistery.
Or perhaps there are two of those orange ones ! -heaven forbid-

text from Bonhams auction in april 2011 :

In April that same year Ariel announced a trio of new models fitted with a leading-link front fork developed in collaboration with E R G ‘Ernie’ Earles. The Earles-type fork was to be made available on the Square Four ‘Royal Hunter’, the KHA MkII ‘Hunt Master’ twin and the VHA ‘Hunt Marshal’ single. This new development was reported at length in The Motor Cycle and Motor Cycling, which also carried advertisements depicting the three prototypes. Interested parties were asked to contact their local dealer for information or send for a brochure. Like so many apparently promising ideas, Ariel’s Earles-fork models did not reach production and of the handful of prototypes made, the KHA Hunt Master offered here is the only known survivor.


https://cars.bonhams.com/auction/19163/ ... o-xfa101x/


just one request...: dont paint this one Orange !

By the look of this advert from 1953 the forks were made by Reynolds or they supplied the tubing to Ariel,this ad is on Ebay

As I remember the discussion that followed the 'unveiling' of the orange KHA there
was considerable scepticism over the claimed provenance of the bike.

The bike in the Cheval article is an interesting collection of parts. With the knobbly
tyres and lights I wonder if it was a privateer's ISDT-type mount.

Somewhere - in one of Roy Bacon's books I think - there is a picture of a single installed
in an alloy frame made by Ernie Earles complete with the link forks.

tele forks work surprisingly well in practice. They allow long springs and travel when done right. Nev

Found this snippet in the back of my 2nd hand copy of Ariel Story.

The reg is from Autumn 1941, but the factory were known for re-using registrations, the most famous being GOV 132 a 1947 number. CM Bennett being Clive Bennett.