Unfortunately Cardan has now added a further question only the AOMC can answer. What do they have on the Barb?
No! No! No! I have that massively-snowed-under feeling, so I'm happy to find out about the Utility question, but I can live with no knowledge at all of the Barb autocycle (other than that it existed).
This is mostly because motorcycles from Finlay/Barb have an interesting story that starts in the early days with BSA/Minervas, running through Barb-GEM motorcycles with the Danish GEM attachment driving the front wheel by friction, through regular machines with Fanfnir and Arno engines up to WW1, then... so the 1940 Barb autocycle is just an addendum.
The number of bikes registered, and the dates of registration are extremely useful to story telling. I've just been working through South Australian records and learning lots. Unfortunately the SA records are corrupted by a flaw that our British friends avoid: when you sold your bike and bought a new one, you could keep your old number. Two huge problems for historians: if the old bike was still alive when sold it could be reregistered, so you get very old bikes appearing with new rego numbers (say a 2 hp clip-on Minerva registered in 1921) AND the new machine never appears.
One of the problems I've been looking at is: When did Bill Smith stop calling his motorcycles Burg and start calling them Favourite? In January 1918 South Australia changed the names of about twenty "German-sounding" towns and locations, so Petersburg (after which the Burg was named) became Peterborough. But during 1918 and 1919 there were a number of Burgs registered, and NO Favourites. The first Favourite registered was in 1920. But Peterborough is a pretty isolated town. What if customers traded in their Burgs with Bill Smith for new Favourites, and kept their old numbers? The Burgs registered in 1918 and 1919 could be all second-hand, and counting Favourites registered, or ruling out 1918 or 1919 build Favourites could be dangerous.
Thanks goodness for the British "rego number for life" scheme. Until the numbers merchants, of course.
Leon
[Edit: I've just had a thought I should have had before. I wonder how new numbers were allocated in the SA system? Let's say Bill Smith in far-off Peterborough has a sparkling new Favourite on the floor of his showroom. A customer comes in on his old Burg and wants the new bike. If he keeps his old number, he can just swap the plates from the old Burg to the new Favourite, maybe fill in a form, and ride off into the sunset. What if he wants a new number? Write to Adelaide, wait for new number to be allocated and posted back to Peterborough? Perhaps there was a big incentive for country motorcyclists to keep their old numbers, particularly if buying from a country manufacturer/dealer?]
