Ariel WN/G 350 1943

1943 Ariel WN/G 350 a war time classic

It’s all original, untouched, just as I like them. Near impossible to find in this condition. It runs, it drives, it’s perfect – well nearly. Now over 78 years old it’s one year younger than my dad! Okay something that old has had a cold or two and piles! The tank leaks and the drive on the gearbox leaks – but easy jobs for me to do when I get time. This one has spent years in a private collection thats why it’s so good. The old guy who saved it wanted to get rid of his collection. I know little about it’s history apart from it did go back to Normandy on a trip.

These were based on the popular Ariel Red Hunter single cylinder 350cc bikes of the 1930’s. The modified war version was made from 1940 – 45. After the war like so many they we repainted and put back into civilian use. At 17 horse power it’s not the fastest bike, but the torque is good and should do 60 all day long – he says! But it did come with a spare new engine.

As with most vehicles, I bought this without seeing it, I was actually out of the country on holiday and did everything by phone and text messages. When I get into something I get hooked, I loved it, I wanted it, I was having it and I was going to Pickering on the 40’s weekend. I didn’t make it, there was too much to do, in no time ! Instead I went on my German NSU Mac, drove there as a German dispatch rider and home as British dispatch driver with my old mate on his Lambretta – great times.

I got my good old friend Jimmy ‘Crackpot’ Dennis to collect it as he lived in Kent where the bike was, Jimmy even knew the guy selling it from years previous in the motor bike trade. Me and Jimmy did our epic around the UK on every motorway on a Lambretta trip and bunked up together and never stopped laughing.

I’m a bit obsessed, my interests vary in many ways. Dispatch riders clothes is one obsession, not just British, but all countries German, French, Scandinavian, Russian. I’ve always been a biker and I love the history of the wars so it all fits together.

This Ariel is one of my prized possessions and lives in the shop on display with period dispatch riders uniforms.