National Motor Museum at Beaulieu

Over the years I've been a regular visitor to the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu for events but it's very seldom that I've taken the time to take a look around the exhibits. After the Graham Walker Run left the Museum's grounds I had a spare hour so it seemed like a good plan to have a mooch around the motorcycle gallery.

It used to be that the bike exhibits at Beaulieu played a definite second fiddle to the four wheelers but the display nowadays is a lot better and there are some historic, unusual and rare machines to behold.

As always photography in museum surroundings can be difficult due to space and light but here are a selection of exhibits that willingly posed for the lens.

This proper early school Brit chop Ariel Square Four has been
an exhibit for donkey's years. If anything time has now been
kind to it and it has moved on from being a glitzy piece of
outrageous eye-candy to a worthwhile historic museum exhibit
in its own right. Genuine preserved late sixties / early seventies
Brit chops are very thin on the ground - too many broken for
spares or converted back to original before they were valued
for what they are. This Ariel is a real piece of history and deserves
to be preserved.

The legendary 1912 Norton 16H of D R 'Wizard' O'Donovan, Old
Miracle.

1948 Triumph 5T Speed Twin sectioned by the Metropolitan
Police at their training school in Hendon.

1917 Vickers Clyno machine gun outfit.

1940 Triumph 3TW twin. Survivor of the one batch that was
made before Triumph's Coventry factory was destroyed in
the Blitz.

1930 Ascot-Pullin model 'Utility De-Luxe'.

1915 Harley Davidson 'Silent Gray Fellow' in front of the 1919
prototype Royal Enfield in-line four. What a shame the RE
four never made production, it could have been a British
rival to the FN and American fours. Test reports for the
prototype were positive but it never reached production
due to predicted high costs.

Gorgeous and original 1913 BAT with wicker chair fitted with
a JAP v-twin motor.

A real oddity, the 1924 348cc Peters. Odd looking and brimming
with unusual features, some clumsy and some advanced. The
cantilever rear suspension is neat, rocking fork front suspension
is less so.

Stafford Pup scooter.

Neat little ohv power unit of the Stafford Pup.
Strangely ohv motors were 'de rigeur' on first
generation sccoters at a time when most
motorcycles were side valve.

Ace Four and veteran Triumph.

Fantastic ohv water cooled 1913 Zenith Gradua.

Vincent Series D Black Shadow runs ahead of a Norton
Dominator.

1927 Morgan Aero.