Hello guys,
sorry to disturb you with a "stupid" question, but I am tring to convince a man (who is waiting the registration of his M20 from the FMI - Italian Federation) that the frame munber WM20 - xxxxx indicates that is produced for the ARMY (contract S1048 -Orchard and Madden)....but the MODEL of the BIKE remains M20. Is it correct? Thanks

email (option): vadori@libero.it

Correct, it is a WD M20 or technically known as "Motorcycle Solo, 500cc, BSA" The war office code is 6005-90-026. It is an M20, the W prefix just basically means the year. The year code was stopped on the military ones as they basically used that model year throughout the duration of the war. Harley Davidson did the same with the WLA's and C's it just denoted the model year that was being used so for the same reason after 1942 you will not find a Harley with 43WLA or 44WLA as the 1942 was the model used throughout the duration of the war. Then in 1946 they continued them with the 46 prefix and in 1947 the 47 prefix. In 1946 BSA continued in the same way with the XM20 (BSA used letters not numbers) and so on.

email (option): davmax@ntlworld.com