I guess it's the old "Supply and demand" equation at work. Those Corgis were so cheap and nasty, particulalry when bought from military surplus, poeple just put them out with the trash if anything went wrong.
It's the same with my favorite, of the bikes I personally owned, a 1961 Ariel Leader. It was only a 250, but the performance was quite good. I could blow off MG Midgets and Triumph Spifires, but couldn't keep up with MGBs and TR4s. It was a 2-stroke parallel twin, full fairing, windshield and engine covers. The factory recoomended gas/oil ratio was 16:1, so it smoked heavily if you were riding hard. The mufflers used to clog up with partially burned oil.
I sent a letter to the factory sking if there were any aluminum parts in the mufflers, as I was planning to clean them with a hot water/lye solution. I got a message back sayin that would work fine and "by the way, testing has shown that the engine is fine on a 40:1 ratio, if you use Bardahl". That made it pollute the air much less.
You can't find a decently restored one these days for less than about £10,000. I paid £100 for mine at 2 years old!
