Dear fellow ww2 enthusiasts,

I've recently came across this amazing project that has been traveling since the war to Sweden and is now in my possession in the Netherlands. This is a BSA WM20 that is lets say 80% complete (positive thinking..)



Now this came in 4 banana boxes + an engine, frame, forks and fuel tank and so this is going to be a full restoration. To get the girl to as accurate a remake of its original glory as possible, I would love to know the full history of this bike. Thanks to earlier research from a fellow dutchman, Henk Joore, I was able to find out that my framenumber WM20.67165 recieved the war serial number C4703253 as far as he had those archives back in the day. All great if true, but unfortunately, besides an old certificate of this find that was received by the former owner, I have no other information. I was wondering if some of you guys have more of those mentioned archive pages; if you could, then maybe find out where and/or with who my bike served. Or if you could help me further so that I could find out who to contact otherwise.

best regards, Stijn, the netherlands

Hello Stijn and welcome!

Can you post some pictures of the frame and engine numbers please?

email (option): wd.register@gmail.com

Stijn,

Individual war time history of a bike is basically impossible to find as the fitting AB412 logbooks are gone (See https://www.wdnorton.nl/Individual_motorcycle_history.htm).

There may be some post 1949 history in the KEY cards. Other people on this forum will be able to say if it is in there.

If not, than that is the end of the search.

Cheers

Rob

email (option): info@wdnorton.nl

Hi Stijn,

No more interest...?

email (option): wd.register@gmail.com

Dear Jan,

sorry for the late reply, my frame number did I previously mention: WM20.67165 , engine: WM20.28935

The bike with frame number WM20.67165 (and identical "duplicated frame number" on the engine) left the BSA factory on September 15th 1942. It was built under contract C/12424, and would have had census number C4703262 on its tank (dear old Henk had it wrong with his calculations). C/12424 was a contract for 8.000 motorcycles.

The bike with frame number WM20.28935 (and identical "duplicated frame number" on the engine) left the BSA factory on November 1st 1940. It was built under contract C/7287, and would have had census number C4345528 on its tank. C/7287 was a contract for 17.000 motorcycles.

When and where the engine and frame got mixed up is anybody's guess. Presumably during the war, in an Army workshop. This was not uncommon. Depending on when this happened, the bike will have kept its C4703262 census number (if early during the war), or will have been issued with a "rebuild" serial (C14xxxxx, if later during the war).

As Rob already said, in 99,99% of the cases, it is impossible to find out where your bike served during the war. There are no such records.

Here's a C/12424 sister bike during the liberation of the Netherlands:



And here's a WM20 which has gone through a major rebuild (later during the war), and lost its original census number:



I can't find your frame number in the post war Key Cards, which means that it must have been sold off before 1949.


Pictures of frame and engine numbers would still be welcome... 😁

email (option): wd.register@gmail.com

Dear Jan,

thank you so much for the reply! I've heard of the fact that normally my engine number should have been the same as the frame. Unfortunately I also don't have any records of when and where. I do however have a official copy of the swedish national archive in which is stated that the first owner after the war there was someone in 1948 and I also have the regional license plate numbers. It was used there till 1956. Also, on these papers the engine number is still the same as the frame nr. I'm afraid that, since I've bought this project bike from a dutchman that had bought 4 BSA's from Sweden, something was already or was then mixed up. A minor detail, im happy I even have an engine haha. Still got lots of small thins to collect to make this a complete bike.

It's cool to see a sister bike of the same line in the Netherlands as I (and by your name I presume you as well) am Dutch, so it would be the coolest thing to know that there might be this small chance of my BSA liberating the Netherlands. It's a shame we can't see further process after the batch of contract C/12424 was done.

Maybe now that I see the photo with a C470xxxx in Twente some of C/12424 might have been assigned to 30th corps. But after writing this I see the huge 79 on the side. the 79th Armoured division also fought in europe since the landings and as far as I know they fought in the south of the Netherlands ..

I will be making pictures of the frame and engine nr. later. I'll send them on your email. Many thanks again!

Stijn

Stijn. The 79 on the tank doesn't relate to the Division! It's the Arm of Service sign. 79 on a black square is "Provost" company (military police) and could apply to several divisions. Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com