AJS & Matchless Owners Club

bostonted wrote:Hi is there any truth in that you could only buy a G80 cs , during the 1950,s if you where going to use it for competitions ?, and that it had to be ordered direct from the factory, otherwise they would not sell to you, unless you lied.

Out of interest why would you have bought one if you were not going to use it for competition? I doubt posers with enough money to simply use a comp bike on the road were around then. (and yes I am one, G11CS)

what if you wanted the bike ,but didn't want to enter competitions, you had the choice to have lights fitted as an extra, to use on the road, is their no truth then that the factory would not sell? or one of these old myths?

No mention of any restrictions in the sales brochure: http://archives.jampot.dk/promotional/S ... _color.pdf

Looking at the 1959 AJS prices an 18CS (I could not see the Matchless price list but it should be similar) was about 8.5% more expensive without lights and about 13.5% more with lights.

If you trust the internet the lights represented about 75% of the average weekly wage at the time and the 18CS was about two weeks full wages more expensive (with lights), I guess you would only get one if you could really warrant it.

Overall an 18CS with lights was just under a third of the average annual salary.

http://archives.jampot.dk/promotional/S ... ochure.pdf Sales of compt. bikes were limited in the 1940's.
I will add my thoughts to those already made as to sales of compt. bikes. First of all the factory would not want to build and hold stock, of machines that may not sell. Due to the low sales, dealers would certainly not want to hold stock. Sales were in fact limited in 1949, not checked other years. This may had led to sales of compt. bikes only being sold upon an order being placed. Mainly direct with AMC. 1958 was a very bad year for AMC. Sales of some 13, 000 in 1950 rose to a peak of over 16,000 in 1955, dropped to just over 7,000 in 1958, 1959, 61 was steady at almost 10,000. 1962 just over 3,000, down hill from then on. Had they not introduced the lightweight in 1958, the company would had folded much sooner. In 1959 lightweights amounted to 33% of machines sold peaking at 55% in 1962. The total production of AMC compt. singles must had been something like 10,000 ( average about 500 per year ) To conclude, considering the whole world probably, many dealers / shops never offered for sale or sold a single compt. bike.