Ariel Owners Motorcycle Club

Hello, does anyone know whether the contract number painted on the tank is both sides?
I've seen plenty of restorations which show it both sides, but I'm working off old photos & ive not seen the same bike photographed on both sides.
As it was for identification purposes & not cosmetic, was it necessary to duplicate it, after all we were at war!
I'm restoring an early 42 raf wng & trying to get it spot on accurate.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Hello Glen,
This pic shows 3 W/NG's ,the one's in the background have their number on the left hand side where the one in the midlle has it on the right hand side.
What I think is happening on this pic is that new W/NG'are being assembled in the field.
Straight from the depot, you can see brown wrapping paper lying around and the bikes look very clean.
I think you can be pretty sure that the numbers where on both sides.
Something else is the RAF roundel, my theory is that is was on the left when the bike rode in England and on the right on the Continent.
Depending on which side of the bike would be visible from the roadside, but this is my guess, no evidence to support.
Also the numbers on RAF Ariels never started with a 'C' (you see a few of those around) but with a '9' or '8'
Pictures below are perhaps not the same bike but looking at the background they where taken at the same place

A few RAF Ariels....

I notice that the new bike being built on the RHS of the picture of the assembly area appears to have an Ariel badge on the rear mudguard , in spite of the assertion in another topic that they didn't.
I would think there were very few hard and fast rules about W/NGs, they just did whatever was needed to get the bike out in the field .

Ian

Hello Ian, yes there is something, but it can also be the contract ID plate...

The photos are amazing, thank you very much.
I've trawled through so much bumf over the last 12 months & I'm finding myself finishing parts in a manner contrary to what's in the notes.
The bike in question was purchased by my father when he was 14 as a field bike, he paid £5 for it back in 1953.
Since then it's been stored in various sheds & workshops, it surfaced about 10 years ago, which is when I gained ownership. Last year I started restoring it with my dad & loving every minute of it. It was in quite good condition considering its age, so we have been carefully going through the parts looking for evidence if their previous finish.
The photos will be very useful for the decoration of the tank etc. Thanks again.

Hi Vincent, you mention that the contract number starts with an 8 or 9 & not with a letter" c".
In the case of my bike, according to the info on the dragonfly web page, my contract number is
C/S 12427.
Would this have a RAF prefix, or C/S, ? Or would it just be the number?
Many thanks, glen

Hello Glen, I would not know.
On the period pictures I have seen there are no RAF Ariels with a number that starts with a letter.
But I could be wrong....

did you see this ? : http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.ph ... -RAF-bikes

This owner copied the number from the picture with the Mitchell bombers.