Ken the frame and engine on ebay at the moment (the owner cant find a frame no,I have told him where to look ) is likely an impressed one as it has a C number that falls in with the impressed block of numbers in OandM s book .but is not as far as I can see a twin port one,the numbers are 40/16 followed by the engine no The second one (a nearly complete bike on eBay with the Irish reg no, ) I looked at that one yesterday,looks like a matchless g3, with of course the twin port AJS engine,note the barrel stub is broken at one of exhaust pipe joint,I was , just trying to find out if the frame is correct, for that engine and not a bitsa bike. Andrew.h

email (option): warbikes@gmail.com

The irish reg bike seems to have an AJS frame,with the cast iron cradle, its not too clear in the pics.
I think its a bitsa, or at least upgraded,the mag platorm looks like an addition, likely this bike would have had coil ignition, mudguards look like Matchless ones, AJS ones were thinner material and more rounded.
lots of small bits non original.

The broken stub is common, but a G3 head wouldd go straight on.

looks set to go fro a very silly price for a mediocre bike.

Thats said, the fuel tank and all its instruments would sell for over a grand, and its a correct AJS one with the filler on the left.
I have seen ratty panel tanks, bare go for 600 quid.

As an aside, the term 'impressed' does bring up visions of confiscation but as Ken says, this wasn't the case at all. Some owners of vehicles did make them available to official organisations but this wasn't so with the armed services. They were nearly all from dealer / factory stocks and often therefore new.

Lorries were a different matter (probably because pre-war, they were built to order rather than for stock like motorcycles).

Prior to the reorganisation which led to the formation of REME, and RAOC taking over all vehicle supply, RASC and RAOC sourced their own vehicles. The RASC (responsible for 'second echelon' vehicles) used the term 'Impressed' and acquired quite a lot. RAOC used far fewer as front line units needed standardisation but they used the much more appropriate term 'Local Purchase' which far better describes the situation - these were simply vehicles purchased other than through central purchasing at the Ministry of Supply, often overseas but also in the UK.

From 'Motor-Cycling' 18/7/1940 :-



This reflects the Dunkirk losses and explains that machines were actually sold via dealers...who no doubt off-loaded their own dead stock first....