Lot details
Registration No: DS 7534
Frame No: 1769
Engine No: 6359
cc: 498
MOT Expiry Date: None

Push bike makers Ariel made their first motorcycles in Selly Oak, Birmingham, around the turn of the old century. Saved by Jack Sangster in the early 1930s, by 1944 the famous Midland marque had joined the BSA portfolio.
This is one of a range of the three and a half horsepower machines first introduced under the Ariel name in 1912 by Components Limited. Featuring the T Head White and Poppe engine made these machines competitive in various Motorcycle Trials as well as the ultimate shop window test for consumers of the day, the Isle of Man TT.
The early Ariel crossing the block here is a Standard Touring bike equipped with an ingenious easy-starting device, a small toe-and-heel rocking pedal on the timing chest which operates a compressor; Ariel being among the very first to employ this technology.
According to the bike's history file, the chain-belt driven single-cylinder machine of 498cc capacity has been on display at Beaulieu since the mid-1960s. Several years after it passed into National Motor Museum Trust ownership, it was decided to enter the bike in the 1987 London to Brighton Pioneer Run. As factory production and dispatch records were destroyed during World War Two and no details existed of it being previously registered, the vehicle was therefore issued with the new DS 7584 registration it has carried since the Run. Current condition of paint and brightwork is described as being generally good and clean.