1937 Ariel Red Hunter, 500cc. Registration number EUM 21 (no...

Estimate

£2,500 - £3,000

1937 Ariel Red Hunter, 500cc. Registration number EUM 21 (non transferrable). Frame number XF 9395. Engine number CH 1134.
Sold with the V5C, R.F. 60, dating certificate, old tax discs, receipts.
'Red Hunter' was the name given to Ariel’s range of sporting singles; making its debut in 1932. Designed by Val Page, the engine was a development of the overhead-valve single he had introduced six years earlier and was carefully tuned for increased performance with polished flywheels, a cylinder head boasting polished ports and combustion chamber and racing carburettor and magneto. The Red Hunters were strikingly handsome machines with red fuel tank panels and wheel centres and a tank-top instrument panel which included speedometer, oil pressure gauge and an inspection light. The 500cc Red Hunter was the first to appear and was also known as the Model VH. It featured a four-valve cylinder head and fashionable twin exhaust ports. A 350cc, or Model NH, followed very quickly but differed in that it featured an inclined cylinder and a two-valve cylinder head. Later that year Ariel ran into financial difficulties but was saved by Jack Sangster, whose family had been involved with the company since the Victorian era. The factory and workforce were slimmed down and Chief Designer, Val Page departed for Triumph. His successor was Edward Turner who had already designed the ground breaking Square Four model for Ariel. Turner rationalised the Ariel range to use as many common parts as possible and the sloping engines were discontinued. The Red Hunter range was extended down to the 250cc LH by reducing the bore size of the 350 to 61mm and the 500cc VH no longer featured a four-valve cylinder head.
EUM XF 9395/CH 1134 started out in two different bikes, frame number XF9395 was dispatched to Jenkins of Leeds with engine number BC 1359, in 1937, frame XG 10773 with engine number CH 1134 was dispatched to the Air Ministry during WWII in 1940. By 1956 they had been joined together and recorded on the R.F. 60 owned by Stanley Fox of Leeds, who was an AA Patrolman; it was a combination by then, registered and insured as such. Tax discs show it was the same in 1961.
By 1990 it was with Alan Robinson, who obtained the dating certificates and restored the bike over a period of time. Our vendor bought it from him in 2022 and has enjoyed many reginal outings on it.
Sold in running order, with a good history folder, there is no battery fitted and the dynamo is not connected.