The Ex-BSA Works Gold Star Trials with Registration Number BSA 350...

October 2024...

Photo Courtesy Bonhams Motors Auctions...

Moving on with another Works BSA Goldie trials bike that has turned up after many years of slumber. (30 plus)This one with the registration number “BSA 350”…

 Going back to the years when the registration was first used in the fourties…(Aberdeen 1941)… Bert Perrigo had his last ride on a trials bike in the 1946 Colmore Cup trial aboard a BSA with the “BSA 350” registration number. The name Fred Rist then appears, Fred had put himself into the army for the adventure, and had volunteered for the ISDT squad of 1938  ( Royal Tank Corps) Riding a BSA 250 Empire Star he came away with a Gold Medal. And had put his name forward for the regiments team the years after to compete up until the 1948 International Six Days Trial he did very well in all trials he competed in and was a natural trials rider from the off. Bert Perrigo spotted the talent and gave Fred a works BSA to ride, when he left the army in 1951. Becoming quite a trials star winning several national trials he became team mates with Bill Nicholson…and preferring the smaller cc bike to Nicholson's 500 with that registration “BSA 500”, Fred rode the 350cc BB engined BSA that had the registration number “BSA 350”…It was not until Fred had retired from competitive competition in 1952 that the bike wearing the reg number “BSA 350” was taken over by another star of the BSA competition squad David Tye who had joined BSA in 1951… David was another all rounder and could ride a scrambles bike just has good as a trials machine, and did very well in the famous Scott Trial and won the event in 1953…and also won the 1952 and 1954 Kickham… after David had also moved on to his new diving career and left BSA in late 1954… and I am thinking, was that last version that David Tye rode in the 1954 Scott trial using one of the prototype springer frames, it is a job to see in the photo below I have…But it was in 1954 that the BSA trials boys followed Brian Martin and converted one of their scrambles bikes to trials specification, using the swinging arm frame. The trials bike wearing the “BSA 350” number had seemed to have been pensioned off after 1954 as we could not find a works rider using this bike during this three year period until in 1957…then a photo cropped up of John Draper riding "BSA350"in what looks like the spring Scottish Six Days Trial,  and it says in 1958...  And by 1958 Brian Martin was already thinking of using the in development new BSA C15 as it was to be known, as a basis for the new Works trials mounts. So in late 1958 the Gold Star trials bike still with “BSA 350” as a registration number a springer, was sent up to Scotland by BSA to Johnny Graham and Ian Pollock to be used for searching out and setting out the sections for the Scottish Six Days Trial, clubman Tommy McNab also rode the bike in Lochaber club trials and others North of the border.

Photo Courtesy Off Road Review... Vol 81-83...

BSA 350 in Johnny Graham's shed. 1960...

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This was until 1960, and after this the movement and history of the BSA seems to disappear, but with the auction notes (Oct 2024) it states that “BSA 350” was still owned by BSA until 1962, and then sold to a Mr J E Davies  in Staffordshire, then there were four more entries as owners in the book, one of these we think was avid BSA competition bike collector Mick Bradbrook from Purley Surrey at some time, the last being A&A Lampkin (Silsdon) Ltd  the company engineering firm of the brothers, this was 1971-4 ? Arthur Lampkin says in a note, and he owned the bike until 1990…The bike had been registered with a different registration number for some reason 148 GOV( 1st April 1982 DVLA say’s, and that “BSA 350” is taxed until 1st April 2025…).   (had “BSA 350” registration number been on a Jaguar car at that time ?) and wore this plate until the vender of the bike managed to retrieve the reg number “BSA 350” at some stage before 2015, as the bike was taxed with this number that year. (DVLA say that the registration was first registered in March 1953 to a BSA)…but we know that it was first registered in 1941 in Aberdeen Scotland.   So ask yourself why is there a BSA 350 in black still wearing the "148 GOV" plate if this was swopped back?

You see how these stories are not simple and would it not be brilliant if we’ve  had have had some form of chipping all those years ago.

Now looking at the Photos of the BSA bike it seems it is not one of the prototype frames that were kept for the trials squad with the forged steel oil pump loop, as it has the normal production flatened tube frame oil pump frame loop…and the frame and engine numbers are interesting with the over stamping and a frame number stamped onto the rear suspension mount. Was it still an ex works BSA BB Goldie when it got to the Lampkin's would you think… and did it leave there wearing the same cloths and power unit…It is just the amount of volume of Gold Star competition bikes the family owned I would be surprised if they knew what they had. This is where my ex works BSA Gold Star XJO 277 went to ground, and came out with the wrong engine and wearing a Bultaco front end… So we will see the outcome of the sale…

Then after doing all this work, to try and establish that the BSA BB Gold Star Trials in the auction had some sort of providence that it was what it was listed as ….”BSA 350” was withdrawn from the sale, so the “wily old fox” has gone back aground for another day…

We don't give up there will be more on this story I can tell... 

Photo scaned from source... and credited.

David Tye riding in the 1954 Scott Trial... Do you think this is a BSA springer frame ? it is a job to tell...

Phone Photo from Norman Vanhouse Book..

David Tye aboard BSA ..."BSA 350"... in the 1953 Welsh Two Day trial...

Credit to Norman Vanhouse ...

Line up in 1953 of the BSA team..for the Scottish Six Days trial

Tom Ellis, David Tye, and John Draper...

Photo from Off Road Review Deryk Wylde...

Here a line up of riders from the Lochaber Club Spring trial of 1959,

With Tommy McNab seated on the 350BB BSA "BSA 350"...

Ian Pollock Standing at back...

The BSA Gold Star Trials that was to be auctioned at the October Bonham's sale but was withdrawn a couple of days before the sale...

So where do we go from here I am waiting for your suggestions...

Where is the Wily-Old-Fox...aground...

01/11/2024... Update.

Avid BSA collectors Ed and Ted Freeman have sent me some press clippings  from one of the weekly papers that the late great Ralph Venables wrote his columb's... This one "Tracing British Classics".

And reading this we can update the story above.

It seems when BSA got the bike back from Scotland in 1962 they indeed did change the registration number on the bike with the "BSA350" plate before sale in October 1962 to the registration number 148GOV... Yes it was then sold to Mr Joe Davies, and then the next in the book is Pat Coleman and then moved on to a Mr Dave White before has we thought the 350 BSA Gold Star bike still wearing the 148 GOV plate was added to the Mick Bradbrook collection along side 776BOP and BOK228C... So we seem to have got nearer the history but which of the bikes still out there actually was sold by BSA in 1962 that is the big question.

Yes this Old Fox is Wily...

More Later...

Updat 2024...10...