Weird guys those British – column

Friend W. John Wheatherworth is a man who can get mildly but immensely excited about incorrect details of ex-army vehicles. We never thought about it, but it turns out there are fifty shades of 'army green'. And they can all be misused during restorations. Much to Wee John's chagrin. Just a year or two ago, as a born and raised Briton, he hit a barn find. After WWII, the BSA was actually only restored 'by brush' a number of times.

But there were indications that this had always been done simply by running a rag of petrol over the paint and then applying another layer. Wee John is now well retired, so theoretically he has plenty of time. That gave him the idea to sand down the colored parts manually until the original war colors and markings saw the light of day again. Beneath all the layers of paint, the BSA did indeed appear to be still wearing its battle gear.

The tank's original color and lettering emerged almost intact after some 50 (!) hours of sanding. The last few 'working days' Wee John did that with increasingly fine sanding and polishing paper. But then the tank was 100% authentic with the perfect patina and only the rest of the engine had to be sanded back to original. Block and bin separated, but turned out to be good enough. The wheel bearings, the clutch and the primary and secondary transmission were trimmed. The wiring harness was remade with the correct wiring. Whether it makes sense to invest hundreds of restoration hours in an M20? Not to mention the economic side of things.

Wee Johns M20 has literally and figuratively become priceless. But he beamed "It was okay for the missus and it was fun!" An ex-army BSA M20 was worth a few hundred guilders in 1950. But those were different times. Now there is a challenging M20 project for sale at Dutch Lion for € 7.450. Just look at the photo. And please don't count hours on a project like this.

In the meantime, now is a good time to buy ex-WWII stuff. It's not cheap anymore. But around the 5- and 10-year D-Day landing celebrations, prices tend to rise sharply once more. Simply because people with money also like to look tough for once.

That can go quite far. Because through our advertisers we heard from someone who also wanted to go to the beaches of Normandy for the previous party. He wanted to go there on an authentic Harley WLA. Such a WLA is quite different from the WLCs that the Canadians surprised us with. So the prospective buyer was looking for a perfect WLA. And because life in the world of big money moves fast, he wanted that machine within a week. Then he had to be ready to go in Normandy. The buyer would then fly there by private jet, drive his round and return the next day. He bought a very nice WLA for an amount that allowed the seller to live almost silently.

And then it turned out that there was a business deal between them. So there stood the Harley mother soul alone in France. The fun was over for the buyer. He took a five-figure loss and moved on with his life. But would I want to have such a life?