Dog Blamer

Less than an hour ago I was trying to lock a multi drawer cabinet that has been in the attic for yonks. Some of the drawers wouldn't close and upon investigation some paperwork was blocking the drawers. I've attached a picture of what was found. The RAF stamped letter is an MIA report. There are a couple of person letters there as well one of which might date to 1889! Can anyone potentially help with getting this back to the family it belongs with?

The motorcycles appear to be P&M. What exact year or model I don't know.

I keep going back to the picture and AC keeps popping into my head but I can't find a picture of one like this. Also been looking up Tricar with no results. I think what we might be looking at is a special bodied one and that means really hard to identify. I cannot see anything with the rear frame quite like that in the search results. My advice is contact the VMCC seeing as this appears to be motorcycle derived. Such vehicles are sometimes in the Banbury Run.

It appears to be a Forecar of some kind. Exactly who made it I have no idea, sorry.

The bike's top speed is less than 40mph. These tyres were passing MOT's without issue.... I did buy him a new tyre when they finally came available. As far as I know he hasn't changed it yet! He's had that bike since 1960. I remember a story about a chap who bought a set of new old stock tyres and was warned that they were not safe and should only be used for display. He put them on and used them... one let go and caused a crash that killed him. Think the car was an Austin Healey.

It isn't always because the owner is too tight to buy new ones. A friend was forced to use 60+ year old tyres because there was nothing available to replace them with unless he fitted ribbed tyres front and rear. Not safe on a motorcycle and looks really stupid on a vintage bike.

Number plates were still being sign written well into the sixties. They are perfectly legal for highway use as long as the size and font conform to the rules. Be different, nearly everyone goes down the pressed plate route. If you want to be unusual go down the black plate with 3D white (or silver) plastic letters and numbers; very rarely seen on anything these days.

OP, I suspect you have an idiot dealing with the application at the DVLA. Some may turn their noses up at such a comment BUT Sunbeam (motorcycles) have no surviving records pre-war nor do Triumph and these are just the two I know have no way of actually dating a vehicle beyond the approximate year. There are many other vehicle makers where there are no extant factory records. The DVLA allow them to be registered.

Ah DSG. They and Holbrook's attitude to making a machine was "it looks a little light let's add more metal...still too light we'll add more". The resulting machines are built like a nuclear outhouse.

A calliper won't tell you how worn the bores are. I suggest that you look for a bore comparator which you then measure with a calliper or micrometer. A huge word of warning; you can do a great deal of damage if you have lipped bores and go down the cheap route of new pistons and rings without reboring. The new rings could hit the lip and you might be in for a big repair bill....

Sadly those machines will be beyond repair especially if water has got inside them. All those years of use with water soluble oil (the white coolant you often see) in factories will have done a great deal of damage too. As to those buses....we will all agree that much worse has been restored. They need to be saved.

Perhaps asking here may bear fruit; Get in Touch – The Automobile They have a wide audience of very knowledgeable people and you may also get someone wanting to give it a home.

Please, please tell me that the logbook has survived? I always find id rather sad when you have to go down the route of age related plate but....there is a chance; KENTKent History & Library Centre, James Whatman Way, Maidstone, ME14 1LQ (03000 41 31 31) Email: archives@kent.gov.uk Open Monday to Saturday.Registers 1904-1974 (Note KN 4488-92 are omitted from the KN register). GIM register D-G 1-1199; HMC registers 1905-20; TP registers (KT and KE) 1923-34; Registers of imported vehicles. Many of the old archive records are in a word CRAP! One of my bikes which luckily was known to the DVLA still retained the original 20's logbook but Dad bought it because we were looking for a vintage bike with a local number. When I approached the records office (it is shown that they have these registers) we were told that they had been lost in a fire so instead I was send a copy from the cancelation book....our bike is in it; taken off the road in 1935. All it shows is reg number, type of vehicle and who had it. Later records from the three letter sequence that survive include the date but zilch about what the vehicle is! Anyone wishing to try and trace a registration mark head here; Kithead Trust | Educational charity set up to collect and preserve material from the transport industries who have a complete list of what survives and where.