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£1,500
1954 AJS Model 18, 500cc. Registration number TPP 113. Frame number A1805656. Engine number G80134083.
"Honest, dependable and free of phony pretensions, the big singles built by Associated Motor Cycles after WWII neatly balance price and performance," wrote Real Classics magazine in their retrospective on the AJS Model 18 and Matchless G80. That opinion would no doubt please Albert John Stevens, who along with his three brothers, first sold motorcycles bearing the AJS nameplate in 1909.
The company failed in 1931 and was taken over by Matchless, the two firms soon operating under the Associated Motor Cycles banner in London. During World War II, the company supplied the British War Department with thousands of Matchless G3L 350cc singles. In fact, AMC's first big postwar splash was with a 'civilianized' G3L in 1946, available in 350 and 500cc displacements, the only difference being size of the cylinder bore. The AJS version of the 500 was called the Model 18. The power unit was a robust overhead-valve engine that developed 23bhp at 5,400rpm. List price in 1951 was just £180, making for a most affordable sporting machine. These big singles, either with AJS or Matchless tank badges, would be the mainstay of AMC from their introduction until the company eventually foundered – the last AJS Model 18 was produced in August 1965.
TPP is a complete machine that with a little effort could soon be once again on the highway. Exported to Denmark in 1998 and with a Peter Junkuhn it was brought home in 2019, it would now need recommissioning before use.
Sold with V5C and Danish registration certificate.
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