Tribute twin
Dave Owen’s Ariels have featured in TCM already. His VB 600 SV single was tested in March 2019, and on a Dutch Ariel rally, his VH ohv 500cc Red Hunter single, exceptionally well-kitted, helped out my ailing NH 350cc with infusions of oil from its neatly-mounted spare container, with a matching bottle of emergency petrol.
A stalwart of the Ariel Owners’ Club, Dave’s definitely the right man to own this special-built version of Selly Oak’s 500cc twin, featuring an all-alloy KHA engine, only produced for the 1953 model year.
With flying colours
With 1953 also being the coronation year, Ariel had celebrated with the distinctive white-lined Wedgwood Blue as the standard finish for the alloy-engined 500cc twins and the new 4G Mk.II Square 4, though Dave confirms that the colour did remain an option on both models for the following four years. “You see a lot of different variants of the colour,” he observed ruefully.
In this case, the pale-ish blue colour undoubtedly lightens the appearance of what is already a machine lightened in reality. The alloy engine shed some 15lb compared with the standard all-iron one (the KHA was catalogued at 370lb dry v the KH’s 384lb), and this special is much lighter still.
The 1953 KHA featured as standard the Anstey-link rear suspension chassis, but this special has a lighter, previous rigid frame; plus a single silencer on its (probably custom-made) exhaust system; and alloy wheel rims, shod with modern German Heidenau enduro-type tyres with motocross inner tubes, for its 3.50 x 19 rear and 3.0 x 21 inch front covers (the original front wheel had been 20 inch, for which Dave says
