Hi - I am restoring an Australian 1941 BSA WM20 Motorcycle and about to paint the registration numbers on the tank. My information points me towards the British method of using C12345 type numbers but apparently when the bikes came to Australia the tank numbers were painted over with Australian Registration numbers like mine 86372 without the C.
Can anyone verify this for me please - also I would like to know what the C stood for ? I dont believe it was contract as the contract number was very different.
"C" was just a code that indicated "Motorcycle". For Example :- light vehicles = "M"...-Medium vehicles = "Z"....-Heavy vehicles = "L". Tanks "T" Ambulance "A" etc. Ron
The number on the tank is called the Census Number. The C prefix is for motorCycles.
When I check the AWM ledgers, I can see that WM20.49484 was issued with Australian census number 86372. This is a motorcycle from contract C/9310 (frame numbers 44213 - 53212; census numbers 4553722 - 4562721). With this information we can easily calculate the British census number of your bike: C4558993.
This is a factory-fresh M20 from the same contract:
But here you can see how the census number was overpainted upon arrival in Australia:
And this is a photograph of sister bike C4558184 (WM20.48675)