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Ariel 3
Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2020 1:22 pm
by smeghead
Re: Ariel 3
Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2020 3:19 pm
by MrGrumpy
You can't believe that they seriously sold these can you!!!
Re: Ariel 3
Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2020 3:43 pm
by Ralph
After they stopped selling them they sold off
hundreds of the Morini? engines for a few quid.
Re: Ariel 3
Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2020 4:12 pm
by smeghead
The dealer has some nice bikes, worth a shufty at the site.
Re: Ariel 3
Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 9:04 am
by Deleted User 4154
£2500 is well over the top. You can still pick up reasonable ones well under a grand.
Bonkers, aren't they?
Re: Ariel 3
Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 10:26 am
by roadster
MrGrumpy wrote: Wed Feb 19, 2020 3:19 pm
You can't believe that they seriously sold these can you!!!
Perhaps the trouble was that they were not serious. Its a moped that practically anyone could ride with minimal driving license requirements. It has some weather protection, a spare wheel, the same riding and parking benefits from the extra wheel as a Piaggio MP3, better luggage capacity than any other moped available at the time. Mister Honda's offering in this segment in that era still rates as the best selling motorcycle ever. In fact a brilliant design concept which was well ahead of its time but badly engineered and marketed.
Re: Ariel 3
Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 2:47 pm
by Davefirestorm
The straw that broke a camels back

BSA thought every housewife in the country would want one,they didn’t and sold very few.As stated they had hundreds/thousands of the engines,think they were made by Anka? or possibly Moroni as Ralph says.All downhill from then the Bandit scrapped etc.etc. They went bust not long after


Re: Ariel 3
Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 4:17 pm
by Ralph
Ariel 3, Arial Pixie, BSA Beagle, all nails in the coffin.
I actually had a Triumph Tina for a wile, only problem
I had with it was the kickstart ratchet would ware
out but other than that it did many thousands of
miles, it had steal ball bearings instead of rollers in
the variator.
Re: Ariel 3
Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2020 8:14 am
by Greyerbeard
The advertising didn't exactly help - even the BSA group didn't know what it was.

Re: Ariel 3
Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2020 9:18 am
by Davefirestorm
BSA were using people who knew f*ck all about motorcycles or the people that bought motorcycles to design new products and also held the belief that they had no competition from Japan,big mistake

.They also had shareholders to please so sacrificed possible new ideas/products ie the Bandit/Fury 350s to satisfy them.I went to the factory to pick a bike up in 1970 it was massive and I couldn’t believe it when they went bust,very sad indeed
