Bonhams to Auction 1901 Ariel Quadricycle

A 1901 Ariel 345cc Quadricycle, frame no. 85, engine no. 607, will be Bonhams London to Brighton sale on November 1. Bonhams estimates the Ariel will sell for a price between £25,000-35,000. This  machine was bought in the Ariel saleroom on New Bond Street more than a century ago and now returns to its home to be sold once more in New Bond Street—this time at Bonhams brand new headquarters at 101, the exact same spot.

“Once in a while a delightful co-incidence occurs which greatly adds to the excitement of a machine,” James Stensel, Motorcycle Specialist at Bonhams explains. “How strange to think of this machine surviving over a century to be sold in exactly the same place it was sold all those years ago. If only the machine could speak, what tales it would tell. We are delighted to be offering a machine of such excellence, Ariel’s ideal, matched by Bonhams today.”

Conceived by Charles Sangster (Founder and Managing Director of Ariel). The Ariel Quadricycle has had just three owners from new—it was first owned by Captain A Loftus Bryan of Borrmount Manor, Enniscorthy, County Wexford, from 1900-67. Previously restored by the noted specialist James Tennant Eyles of Oxford, it is unusual for a quadricycle in that Ariel manufactured their machines as tricycles offering an optional attachment.

Ariel Motorcycles was a British motorcycle manufacturer based in Birmingham. It was one of the leading innovators in British motorcycling and was sold in 1944 to BSA, with the Ariel name surviving until 1970. The original company was established in 1870 by James Starley and William Hillman to make bicycles. In 1898, Ariel produced a powered tricycle with a de Dion engine.

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