Looking at Henk's frame numbers page there are a lot of M20s in Australia and New Zealand still with matching numbers, so it would appear the system worked differently there than in Europe.
I suspect its all down to numbers, down under a machine came in for repair and it was the only BSA needing work so it was fixed and sent out again.
In the UK a quantity of BSAs all arrived every day and a production line of repair was set up with one team removing engines another fixing them and yet another fitting the first available engine into the machine with the top priority.
Rob
No the system worked exactly the same as in the UK.
What we did get down here was a massive number of unused M20's sold at "auction" for £ 10 as military surplus.
Some had quite low numbers.
Mine is 78096, matching numbers bought brand new surplus stock, the person I bought it off was the 2nd owner .
Now here is the interesting bit.
It is not listed in the legers that the war memorial has put on line.
Further more I have come across several others that are not there either so me thinks either BSA or the Dep of Supply shipped them over here to sell in order to raise desperately needed foreign exchange.
Remember post WWII most of the dairy other than fresh milk consummed in the UK and a lot of the dried milk consummed in Europe came from OZ & NZ and it had to be paid for some how.
Then there was the wool , wheat & mutton.
For while we had a neighbour who was born in Hambourg and she clearly remembers all of the dried milk containers having little Aussie flags on them, and after she saw her first real orange also with an Aussie flag on it she decided this was the place to be and became a stow away to get here.
The UK government reniged on the deal & never paid us for any armourments , small arms or ammo we shipped to the UK and we shipped a bloody lot of it so the Aust government was not in a mood to extend the UK credit for food & fiber
There is quite a good picture of a 1942 bike in the Technical section, electrical equipment of this website. Sensusnumber of this bike starts with 4552..... It still has got the horn underneath the saddle so I guess it is an early 1942 model.
There is quite a good picture of a 1942 bike in the Technical section, electrical equipment of this website. Sensusnumber of this bike starts with 4552..... It still has got the horn underneath the saddle so I guess it is an early 1942 model.
Matty
Thanks for your thoughts about my matching numbers. Should this be the case & considering the bike's condition when I got it, I suspect that it was sold to one uncaring owner who hammered it thoroughly before chucking it in the back of the shed or something. The head had a few stumps where fins had once been,& it's had forks from another bike fitted at one stage, the longer ones as discussed on this forum some time back & had the remains of a green colour on the tank (not military green).
