A lot is thought back against New Year's Eve. About what has gone and what has come. And we got a moment like that when reading the 'Motorcycle Handbook' - a kind of all motorcycles from… Actually what the motorcycle market looked like at the time - from Boom-Ruygrok publishing house from Haarlem. From 1948.
We dreamed about the motorcycle brands that were for sale at the time. And 'then' was in 1948
Ardie, AJS, Ariel, Batavus, BSA, Calthorpe, CZ, DKW, Excelsior, Eysink, FN, Gazelle, Germanic, Griffon, HD, Horex, HRD, Indian, James, Jawa, Manet, Matchless, Monet Goyon, Motor Guzzi, Norman, Norton, NSU, Panther, Peugeot, Puch, Royal Enfield, Sachs (as engine block supplier) Sarolea, Saxonette, Sparta, Simplex, Sunbeam, Terrot, Tornax, TWN (Triumph Werke Nürnberg = Triumph Germany), Triumph, Universal, Velocette, Victoria and Zündapp.
In the meantime, the player field has been considerably thinned / changed. But it's funny to read that our "four-stroke / two-stroke" was written as "four-stroke / two-stroke." The fact that cylinder heads were removable and how many bolts they were attached to was also seen as important. The brand of the carburetor and the associated nozzle sizes, we have not read that for a while and the fact that the gear ratios were not yet undermined by marketers babbling. The remark that 'the motorcycle can be used with a duo seat' must have encouraged many desperate bachelors in the time that 15,5 hp from 598 cc was still quite an impressive value. The knowledge that a piston was provided with three piston rings and that the cylinder could be dismantled without removing the block from the frame could be decisive for a purchase.
Marketing then
The fact that marketing was not as perverse as it is today, but had already been discovered, is evident from the technical data of the Batavus LE, a two-stroke engine with detachable cylinder head, a cylinder capacity of 143 cc and a capacity of 4,5 hp. The Greatzin K / 16 carburetor with main nozzle 75, stationary nozzle 30 and venturi tube 10 took care of the mixture supply. Under the heading 'cooling' it reads: Nature of the cooling system: Turbo (air).
And that there was no BMW in that yearbook in 1948? That was because the Germans in 1948 still just too much 'de Moffen; goods
Nice is not it?
