Mystery motorcycle

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Can anyone i.d. this make of bike please? The rego APPEARS to be DMW, a 1946 Wiltshire one so I am guessing it's ex-WD. Must be 500 cc I would say. The photo was taken 1962/3. A quick response gets a free magazine! I was thinking Norton Model 18 as it appeared to be ohv and not a SV 16H?

[Richard Farrant]

Originally posted by David_Hayward
Can anyone i.d. this make of bike please? The rego APPEARS to be DMW, a 1946 Wiltshire one so I am guessing it's ex-WD. Must be 500 cc I would say. The photo was taken 1962/3. A quick response gets a free magazine! I was thinking Norton Model 18 as it appeared to be ohv and not a SV 16H?

David,

Email sent to you regarding other photo.

This one could be a Model 18, 500cc, but again it has a large sidecar, so it could be a Model 19, 596cc, which had sidecar gearing. Not sure if the Model 19 was produced in 1946, but suspect they had not had enough time to retool so prewar models were only ones available. Don't think it is ex-WD unless it was an impressed one from civilian stocks.

[mike mckinley]

hello david

it looks to me like an excelsior

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Richard, my e mail dsystem has gone down and I have retrieved only from 10 days ago. I hope that I responded to you. I know the Norton 19 was produced post-war in the telescopic forks days, and it apparently looked like the ES2. I assume that the ES1, which preceded the ES2, looked like the 19 and it does look like this bike. An Excelsior is a good suggestion, thanks, though I can't find anything on them to compare.

[Richard Farrant]

Originally posted by David_Hayward
Richard, my e mail dsystem has gone down and I have retrieved only from 10 days ago. I hope that I responded to you.

David,

I did receive your email reply, thanks.

Not sure myself, on Norton models available immediately post war.

[Rich Payne]

Ah, the joys of winter motorcycling - A Double-adult outfit going sideways ! The bike is a 1946 Norton Model 18 with no military connection.

Civilian Nortons were reintroduced for 1946 with a range comprising the 16H SV and the OHV Model 18. The engine was the same as used in those models from 1938 (excluding the WD SV models which had kept the older 1937 pattern engine). 1946 was the only year that girder forks were fitted post-war.

The front brake drum had moved to the right for 1939 but the forks altered slightly for 1946 as the headlamp was mounted on two brackets rather than the "prongs" used previously. The toolbox is also more rounded than the earlier models.

The range was expanded for 1947 to include the ES2 with plunger rear suspension and the Big 4 634 sv but these all had telescopic forks.

The machine in the picture has been modified by the fitment of a 1953 style pear shaped silencer but I think still has the original 500cc engine as the 600 was physically taller and the valve gear was almost hidden under the fuel tank.

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

You all get a free ROADSCENE magazine if you PM me your addresses!!!

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

That photo was taken on the A303 I think, road past Stonehenge to Devon, and the location is somewhere in Wiltshire on Salisbury Plain. The date? The terrible winter of 1962-3, and actually it was Feb/March 1963 I believe. I wonder if the charioteer had seen military service?

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Someone else has suggested that the kickstart spring has broken!

Is the chair a Double-adult? Looks like a Child-Adult one but who made it? Of course chummy's wife would have had enough that winter and told him to buy a car...perhaps a Reliant three-wheeler at least? Or a dreaded Bond Minicar.

Or a Minivan if he passed his test?

[Rich Payne]

David, you may be right about the classification of the chair. I have the tendency to call any large saloon sidecar a "double-adult" but my experience of the things is restricted to riding a BSA with a box of bricks on the float into a telegraph pole !

I remember the winter of 1962-3 because the snow alongside the garden path stood higher than I did.

I tend to think "Busmar" with most of this type of sidecar but there were of course many small manufacturers.

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...%3Den%26sa%3DG


The small car was responsible for their demise, along with the MOT test as many were not all that well maintained.

I should think it a certainty that this rider was ex-Services, either wartime or National Service. I wonder if he was wishing he was back on a WD Big 4 Norton with sidecar wheel drive ?

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Trouble is I can 'see' that sidecar combo in my mind's eye, as the last of the 'holdouts' rode around with a child-adult or rare double adult, with Panther 650 cc sloper power, or just perhaps a BSA 650 twin. I have only ever been in a sidecar once, and yet I hankered for an outfit. My late father-in-law joined the TA a short time after that winter, and Captain Northover, RA was given a Triumph TRW, as was his squad, to road around on over Salisbury Plain etc. spotting for the artillery. Imagine having sidevalve twins in the mid-Sixties!

[rewdco]

David,

I can only add a small amount of information to what Rich Payne has already explained.

I have a WD/CO in my register with a licence number DMW870. According to the DVLA, this motorcycle was first registered on May 10th 1946. This might help in dating this Norton a bit more accurately... (by the way, DMW486 is no longer on the DVLA computer, at least not as a Norton...)

REgards,
Jan

[Rob van Meel]

actually the head lamp on the 1946 girder forks is mounted on four brackets, in stead of the two 'prongs' of the WD model.
Not quite very good visibility in the picture, but I would go for the 1946 Norton model 18 option. (and having had 1948 and 1954 ESII and a 1947 model 18 I do know my Nortons. Regrettably onle the 1954 ESII remains.)

Silencer looks like a early fifties replacement.

Rob

[Rich Payne]

Originally posted by Rob van Meel
actually the head lamp on the 1946 girder forks is mounted on four brackets, in stead of the two 'prongs' of the WD model.
Rob

Apologies for my imprecise use of language. I should have said "two brackets on each side" (Well I knew what I meant ! )