An interesting old bike on eBay

Don't know if any of you vintage enthusiasts have seen this. I thought it was a fascinating machine. "I" is the seller, not me.

Item # 230539650299


BARN FIND
1951 Ariel Square Four, 4,500 Original Miles

Okay, it was a garage, but you get the idea…a dusty garage and buried at the back of the garage behind years of accumulated 'stuff' were four motorcycles. The elderly gentleman who had these motorcycles for 30 - 40+ years was a conservative rider and would mostly ride the motorcycles around the neighborhood so that is the reason for the low miles.

I have literally owned these bikes for only a few days and have not had a chance to ride them so please be prepared to thoroughly go over any bike(s) you may win here. The motorcycles will need new tires, batteries, etc. but it is also important that you have a knowledgable motorcycle mechanic go through the bike because most have not been ridden in over five years.

That being said I hope you realize that I am trying to represent these bikes as they are, cool old bikes that were owned by the same guy for decades and have not been properly tended in the past several years.

THIS HAS GOT TO BE THE ARIEL SQUARE FOUR FIND OF THE YEAR! 4,208 ORIGINAL MILES.

Everything original, includes tires, air pump, tools (no case), original rare gas cap, speedometer, ammeter, head light lens, horn, original rubber on foot pegs and shift lever and also original leather on seat plus original leather on passenger seat/with springs.

This bike has three stands - rear, center and side.

This bike was apparently a special order bike from the dealer with chrome forks, chrome chain guard, chrome tail light bracket and chrome passenger handle.

This bike may have been the 1951 factory show bike because of all the special chrome plating. There is no historical paperwork to substantiate this theory but chrome is chrome and you can see it in the pictures. Some say that only better looking bike then a 1951 Ariel Square Four is a Vincent Black Shadow and there are those few that even like the Square Four's looks better then the Vincent.

It has been over five to ten years since this bike has been ridden but it still kicks over with plenty of compression and the clutch still disengages. The elderly owner purchased this bike from the original owner in the early 60's and drove it around the neighborhood, accounting for the unbelievably low mileage of 4,208 miles.

One English bike expert said that he prefers this Ariel with the patina left as is and only things that should be done to it are those that are necessary to get it running. He said that in its patina condition it would steal the show away from most restored bikes at a meet.

If you are a serious collector of English bikes this Ariel Square Four should be a must for your collection.

Nice, I just saw some ariels in an old movie from 58 called The Hot Angel.

The "Squariels" were interesting from an engineering viewpoint, but the complicated design - effectivley two 500 twins geared together at their respective crankshafts made them hell to work on. Also, the rear cylinders had to make do with the hot air off the front two for cooling, so specific output wasn't very high. Ariels tended to be fairly low-revving torquey engines, until they did the Leader and Arrow models.

The tried a "stretch" Leader with a 600cc water-cooled four cylinder engine (not sure if it was a boxer or an in-line on its side), but when the prototype engine was dyno tested, it only developed about 30 bhp. The cost of that development program and its very unsatisfactory result was the death blow for Ariel and they folded. There wasn't enlugh money left to redesign the engine. As a Leader owner, I would have been very concerned about wheels and brakes on a much heavier bike. I don't think the cycle parts were going to be changed. If you think the original Commando front brake was bad, it was much better than the Leader's!

I think their collapse was mid-1960s, just before I emigrated. This stuff is from memory, so some details may be wrong!

I think the Squariels were off the market by 1960. There's 1958 one on ebay also.

Thanks for the post, Frank. That Squariel would definitely float someone's boat. I remember that a number of modified Square Fours were sold as 'new' bikes under the name Healey during the 70s.

Let us know how much it sells for eventually.

The best ones are the latest ones, they have 4 pipes. The trouble with the two pipers is overheating since the exhaust manifold runs the entire lenght of the head, the latest ones also have better oil pumps and lots of other bits I can't remember. I told one guy collecting these about this auction and he said "pass" because he already has a couple to restore and the fact that they are not the 4 pipe type.

Jean

Leather saddles ? Hasn't he ever heard of Rexine ?

I have to say that to me, it looks like a mild late 1960s custom rather than a 1950s show model.

You guys see that awesome car they were selling also???!!!! 57 Morgan plus 4 convertible, shame they just let it decay like that. Some rich guy will have a nice car in a year or 2 though hahaha

The best ones are the latest ones, they have 4 pipes.
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They are known as the 4G mk2 engines. I put one of those into a slim-line Featherbed frame back in the early seventies, i'd love to know if it still exists,
Dave.