Re: Royal Enfield WDCO & C post war factory rebuilds.
These booklets were used for several different bike categories:
- In November 1945 the Army sold off all the Enfields, often in lots of 10 bikes or more. These bikes were often bought by dealers, to be rebuilt (resprayed?) and sold on the transport hungry civilian market.
- Some of the ex Army bikes were taken over by the factory and professionally rebuilt, also for the civilian home market.
- The factory also had lots of military spare parts and rebuilt engines and gearboxes, which were now all obsolete. Up until the early 1950's these obsolete spare parts were assembled in "home market Model CO" bikes, with their own specific frame number sequence.
- When the war was over, the last WD/CO contract S/3357 had been cancelled after only 3.500 of the 5.000 contracted bikes had been delivered. The factory still had enough brand new parts to build another 1.500 brand new bikes. These "export market Model CO" bikes were all sold abroad.
