The son in question is the new 'Ariel' motorcycle..

It's the son of an Ariel Square Four via Honda Motors Ltd...

A bit like the ill fated Vincent via Honda Motors Ltd. from America...the Gold Star via Yamaha Motors Ltd., the new Hesketh via S&S Motors Ltd. and the Brough Superior via some French engine builder or other Ltd....

These things don't cut it in my opinion....Just pick up a convenient motor, stick it into a new chassis and apply an (unrelated) name of your choice...

The fact is on that basis any make could be resurrected...supposedly...

Personally I still think wooden furniture is better than laminate, leather jackets won't be replaced by platic ones and ground up acorns don't really make a substitute for the coffee bean....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

There's not much space to carry a tent and sleeping bag..

By the way, if you haven't seen the Ariel you can find it on Dannys excellent 'Sump' website...Take a look, just Google 'Sump magazine'...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

how about this one ian ebay 281389583844 would be a good engine to put in an M20 frame if it was cheaper

A guy near me has already done that Roger. I'd say it wants finishing nicer though. Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

['The fact is on that basis any make could be resurrected...supposedly...']


As I was saying...Check out the other resuscitated 'British' motorcycle on Dannys site...A crap Chinese 125 with the Francis Barnett name on the tank...and there was me thinking the Fanny B came from England?...Ian
...

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Apart from anything else, that "Ariel" is just plain ugly!

email (option): petercomley@web.de

I guess we all forgot the \"badge engineering\" era of the \'50s and \'60s. And no, the fact that those were made in England (or, in the case of Indian, U.S.) does not make them any more legitimate.

email (option): jonny.rudge@verizon.net

I still haven't found this Ariel/Honda on Danny's site. Anyone post a link?

Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

click on the "News" button

email (option): petercomley@web.de

Oh! This thing?

http://www.sumpmagazine.com/classicbikenews/july-2014/ariel-ace.htm

I passed over this several times because I was looking for a retro Square Four.
Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

I really can't see the point of it. you can buy a Honda with that engine in already, and you can't call it an Ariel. It's like Norton putting an Aprilia V4 engine in a rolling chassis and calling it a Norton race bike. If it had done well at the TT, people would be going out and buying the Aprilia that has that engine fitted. Norton aren't producing that bike to sell so it's not doing Norton any good, and it certainly isn't a Norton bike. Triumph are the only ones that have got it right.

email (option): horror@blueyonder.co.uk

It's kinda like George Washington's original hatchet. It'is had the handle replaced 3 times and the head once.

email (option): ldj1002@yahoo.com

I though that was Trigger's broom Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

Surely we can't complain about naff new Francis Barnets? They themselves made the Fulmar and anything that follows that is an improvement?

"BaStArd" BSA

"Made in Israel" By somone..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uzFTBgaoPM

Noam.

email (option): noam10@gmail.com

Well Noam, at least it is a BSA and the owner has put a lot of love and care to make something that suits his taste. I bet it draws a crowd where ever he goes. The tongue in cheek tank title is brilliant.......In fact I'm strangely attracted myself. Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

Well it's pretty in an attractive sort of way.

Horrible...Gaudy and tasteless (IMO)..Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Ho..

And I thought that most of us are "Rivet counters"..

OK then,
Here's another one for you.
Also local made..

Noam.

email (option): noam10@gmail.com

'Born to be wild'...etc. ....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

I like what you've done with your hair, Ian.

But there might be a problem to put on the Normandy tribute cap..



Noam.

email (option): noam10@gmail.com

I'd need a hair transplant before I could do that Noam...Mine disappeared over the horizon a long time ago... ...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Now that last one I do not like Noam! I like to think that any modified bike is at least reasonable to ride. Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

Hi Ron,

Actually, I thought about buying that last one, already talked seriously with the guy,
But beside practical reasons, like place to keep it and so on,
(I already keep 2 WM20s’ 2 sidecars, 1 SYM Joyride 200, my wife’s old SUV and a company car, and we have a shared parking with the neighbors..)
I am sure that it would be hard to pass it through MOT inspection once a year,
With that rear tire, which does not match the title at least, and the front is really too high/long.

The other option is to replace the chassis,
(This one has been altered. I have a spare nice one)
But then- I will have to replace the fork, the rear rim and tire, (Basically- the rear wheel assy)
The seat, and to restore it into a reasonable shape, even if not original,
But it starts to become a bigger project than a rust-pile “Barn find”,
And it does not sell cheap enough as it is…

Noam.

email (option): noam10@gmail.com

OK, let's look at that monstrosity, with a practical eye. As it sits, it's 'orrible. So:

Obtain ownership.
1.Sell forks, in component pieces.
Sliders, look like Triumph T140, possibly £150.
Legs, T140 maybe, Lengthened £50
Fuel tank, £60 on a bad day.
Frame, without paperwork, £500
Rear wheel, depending on hub, maybe £75
Other bits (yokes, oil tank, mudguards etc) maybe £250

You then may be left with an engine & box. If I had a decent frame (M20-21), I know what I'd do!

email (option): oldjunk@btinternet.com

Good points Duncan.

So then I will only have the wife factor left to deal with..


Noam.

email (option): noam10@gmail.com

Photos taken today:

Another WM20 abuse in the making...





Noam.

email (option): noam10@gmail.com

So where is the law that every one must ride a bike that is identical to what it looksed like when it left the factory ?
It is his bike & if he likes it that way then it is right to ride it like that.
If you don't like it then tough titties.
Either don't look at it or buy it off him and make it look like all the other little boxes on the hill side, little boxes made out of ticky tacky and if your really lucky then they will all be made of ticky tacky and will all look just the same.

email (option): wariron@tpg,com,au

And as for the "areil" well in my eyes it is uglyness personified .
However I am not the target demographic and at my age definately do not represent the future of motorcycle consumption.
However I am sure they consulted widely with "prime & load " who correctly identified that 40's & 50's era is big at the moment with the 15 to 25 demographic who have as little idea about the period as Sarah has about WW II.
So they will flounce up to the showroom in their best authentic 50's gear ( USA private coctail dress ) with 1/2 their breasts and most of their legs on exhibition which in the real 50's would have had them locked up for peversion of public decency and marval at the machine parting with some ready earned which is the aim of the exercise.

Launching any new product is not easy and ther is only so much money to be made from liscencing T shirts & mouse mats emblazoned with the Ariel logo, so if the trade mark holder want to prostitute their property well that is their business and if you don't like it then form a co-operative, raise some capital and make the owners an offer for the trade name, other wise try to remember that we are living in the 21st century and palying in the past, not the other way round.

email (option): wariron@tpg,com,au

I wouldn't suggest for a minute that everyone builds a series of 'clones' to an exact pattern...

I also wouldn't presume to tell anyone what style of bike they should build...Beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all....

However, I feel entirely comfortable expressing my own view of what I like and what I don't...It's just my opinion after all...

I will also usually criticise bikes that display poor build quality and lack of attention to detail...That, in my view, is not a matter of opinion but a matter of good (or bad)practice...

Regarding the Ariel I can't say personally I like what they have built though as you quite rightly point out I am also not the person the bike is aimed at...

What I find so irritating about these 'reborn' creations is that they have no connection and bear no resemblance, either visually, conceptually or historically to the bike that they are supposedly recreating...

Forgetting demographics etc. can anyone seriously argue that a bike using a Japanese engine, made in a format that Ariel never used and with chassis components sourced form all points of the compass can claim any link to the Ariel company?..

As I said previously it seems to me the concept we are being asked to accept is that you can take any name and any bike, put them together and claim you are 'recreating' something....I don't think that is the case at all and find that idea laughable...

They are creating something new and it could be called an Ariel (or anything else) but I consider it insults peoples intelligence to suggest this has anything at all to do with the original Ariel company or its products..

If they had called it something else would anyone jump up and say...'But surely that's an Ariel?'....I'm guessing probably not.. .....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

I totally agree with you, Ian-

"I wouldn't suggest for a minute that everyone builds a series of 'clones' to an exact pattern...

I also wouldn't presume to tell anyone what style of bike they should build...Beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all...."

I am not a "rivet counter", and my bikes may not be museum pieces.
On the contrary- They "sweat" oil that I don't always bother to clean,
It is dusty, usually, but people seem t like this "patina"..
I can use some other components here and there, like Ariel levers,
Cause that's what I found, or put a better tail light and horn, for safety.
I can replace the dynamo with an alternator which looks the same,
Or make the engine more powerful,
But I feel that I do not have the right to cut the chassis, put a Japanese
Front fork, and a 16" balloon rear tire, a Harley fuel tank and off-road mudguards,
Because this bike is more than metal. it is an historic relic, it has a past,
It stands for something.

How can I decide to cut and weld a 73 year old frame?

Regularly, I'm not really a purist.
I do not mind chopping a "Suzuki", weld it to a "Honda", and put a "Renault"
Power plant in it..

But here it is different, and I think that most of us here feel the same,
More or less, if judging by the comments whenever an M20 or another WD bike
Is being chopped and it's guts are being offered om eBay..

Noam.

email (option): noam10@gmail.com

While we're on the subject, I may be in the process of earning my place in heaven, looking at the views of some in this thread.

One of the bikes in my stable, is a B31/M20 hybrid. The front half of the frame, is B31, with the rear M20.It had competition plates on when found, and I think it was off-roaded, after ditching the plunger B31 rear. Not a straightforward mod, as the engine/plates take a bit of re-deigning.

Anyway, I've now found the correct B31 rigid section (cost a fortune at Kempton yesterday}, and I have an M20 front half (£40 at Netley Marsh last year). So, obvious plan - Re-unite the respective halves, ending up with a complete B31 rigid, and a complete M20 frame. I have one person on the first refusal list, then it's going to be on offer here.

email (option): oldjunk@btinternet.com

Noam ,
It is an age old problem.
My wife spent 22 years with a major museum in Sydney.
To the conservators, every one on this list are wanton vandals.
What we do, removing the paint appllied by BSA is vandalism.
Replace it with anything other than the exact same material by the exact same method is a travesty and destroys the authenticity & historical relevance of the motorcycle.

It is all a matter of perspective.

To them we are worse than the chopper builder.

Now as for "destroying" a perfectly good M20 to make a chopper , I have no problems with it as I have no problems with some one chopping a WLA or Knuckle head, an A 10 , an A 65 or Brough Superior for that matter, unless that particular bike has some sort of significant historical provenance and if that is the case, "restoring" it is just as bad as chopping it.

It is just as "wrong" as it would be for me to dig up details of the contract for my bike then repaint it in military drab, put some divisional markings on it and pretend it is a WW II veteran when all the time , it sat in a crate to be sold off unused surplus post war.

Post WWII the Australian army retained around 1500 of the M20's they had ordered during WW II and there are several people on this list that could nut out how many we ordered .
The rest went to surplus auctions. Companies like Mobilco & Hargon bought up all the surplus motors they could to fit them to swing saws, Howard did the same for rotators & slashers and when the supply of motors dried up they bought complete bikes, pulled the engines, parted out what they could then sent the frames to Simsmetal.
There used to be a photograph in the office below the lab of the "new" press in 1950 bailing thousands of surplus & damaged motorcycle frames. There was also one of the special jig lowering complete Merlins into the open hearth furnace to melt the alloy off the steel.

There is only one reason why people chop particular motorcycles and that is they are plentiful and relatively cheap.
WM20's fit that bill perfectly. I would be surprised if there was much less than 1/4 the original production number out there and there are more than enough in museums for Joe Public to look at and see what the veterans actually rode.

And is the chopper builder any worse than the Historic racer, who cuts down the frame, fits bigger pistons, fills in the head, moves the plug fits an alloy head, a modern Suzuki clutch, a mikuni carb and thunders around a track at 90 + MPH. we would probably all be in the crowd, cheering him on.

email (option): wariron@tpg,com,au

Oooooh Now you've dun it!

As a fan of 'specials' I have to say I'm in agreement with much of what Trevor says..I think there is room (and sufficient bikes) for both the 'special builder' and the 'rivet counter' in the classic bike world generally..

Treating these old bikes as 'sacred cows' and/or 'investment commodities' is historically a relatively recent phenomenon and in the latter case not one that does much to enhance the view that, primarily, these things are a form of transport and should be enjoyed as such...

From the very earliest days of motorcycling people have altered motorcycles to bring them nearer to their view of the ideal machine...
That is a skill that takes time to acquire and means that, due to ineptitude, some pretty horrible things will be built during that process...

There is also the fact that our judgements about what IS ideal are made from a multitude of different perspectives...

The idea that everything should be built to a 'standard' specification would make for a pretty dull world and even then there would still be plenty of argument about what, exactly, that means....(just look at some previous forum posts on the subject)

The fact is we all do different things for different reasons, and in our opinion, entirely valid ones....

The real problem here is learning to accept what everyone else is doing.
That can be problematical as we all have a 'considered' view of the world that we think is A) right and B)strongly held.....

I don't particularly like the bikes that Noam has posted pictures of here and I'm happy to express my personal view on that...
On the other hand I don't have anything at all against people building something different in principle, or in using an old bike to do it..It's something I spend much of my time doing.....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Well SWMBO got me into the store where they kept the most historically important motorcycles.
I was expecting to see glinting perfect chrome reflected in gleaming polished paint.
What I saw was clean machines with funny coloured daubs of paint where they had made good stone chips or rust.
These were done in a sympathetic but never the less distinctive colour so the viewer could clearly see what was original period paint and what was the repair. They had photos and brouchures to show what it looked like when new.
One 1/2 of a tank logo that was missing was printed out in the original colours on paper and adhered in it's original position to match up with what was left of the faded original. They also had wm20's there from particular battles resplendent in hand overpaint and divisional markings with dribbles of paint on the stencils.
I had already "restored" three BSA's by this time and it did make me think seriously about my attitude towards the marque that I love .
So that was the last time I stripped a part bare unless there was absolutely no alternative and when I did do a job on a bike I labled them refurbishments or rebuilds and never again a restoration.

It is a philosophical point. What is authentic, how it is now or how it was then ?

When they brought up the hulk of the James Craig to Sydney for the bicentennial the owners electric welded plates to the hull that were originally riveted and when the ho ha was over & bunting all pulled down the owners had a real problem as no maratime historical organization would give them the time of day or more important a free birth , till eventually they cut out each & every electric weld and allowed the volunteers to rivet it back together. Then each & every part that went in was made the same way as the original including things like paint which was made especially for the restoration and applied with period style brushes.
this restoration took some thing like 6 years longer than planned and sent a lot of people to the wall.
However what is tied up to the wharf now is exactly the same as what was tied up to the wharf 100 years ago and there is a difference.

Now I am not trying to poo poo any one who gets their jollies by making their machine look as close to the way it did when it went into service . Resplendant in two pack urathane replacing the original stove enamel, or with electric welds repairs where the furnace braising was or even the LED tail lamp discreetly fitted into the original fittings. If that is what rocks your boat then go ahead and do it. It is after all your bike & you have the right to do with it as your please.
All I suggest is that you offer the same consideration to others who do not share the same values as yourselves and respect their rights to do with their property whatever rocks their boats.

email (option): wariron@tpg,com,au

If you own it you can do what ever you like with it!

What about this?
http://www.musketvtwin.com/home.html
A guy has built a rather tasty bottom end which accepts Royal Enfield jugs and slots into the standard frame (with slight stretching)

I rather like this myself...

I remember seeing this after he scratch built his first one. From memory, he's an Indian guy, and did it in his spare time in his shed over 2-3 years. I did think the barrel's were a bit far apart, but much improved to my eye since he's tightened them together.
Since we're talking specials. Here is the Indian/BSA special that I built. It's a 500cc engine (bored out to 580cc). Loads of torque and will knock spots of my 600cc M20.

Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

I do love that bike Ron, you've done a great job. The engine looks like it belongs there and not just wedged into a frame.

email (option): horror@blueyonder.co.uk

Cheers Dave. The old WD/CO seemed a tad gutless when I took it to Poole Royal Marine camp the other day After using my special lately. Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

I went to the Wednesday bike meet last week and saw this. Not a bad replacement for a 16H engine Sorry I couldn't get a very good picture as the sun was so low and bright.

email (option): horror@blueyonder.co.uk

That's a tight squeeze and really fills the frame. It looks great. Is that an actual Matchless engine? The Brough boys must be spluttering into there pink gin's. Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

I can't find the NOC magazine that it was in, but from memory, it's built from new parts from a supplier who produces them for Morgan three-wheelers.

No one would 'dare' to do that to a Brough but a WD16H is fair game !

The cylinder head fins are sideways on the Morgan engines (Like an M20 Clifford engine). I guess he has modified heads? And castings with 'N' on them.

Very clever.

Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

The original front down tube has been cut away and replaced with an "S" shaped tube to clear the exhaust. The 16H frame and forks were quite rough and pitted, it looks like he's rescued it from the scrap heap. He's managed to make a silk purse out of a pig's ear

email (option): horror@blueyonder.co.uk