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the Archive indexIf only the machine had been as attractive as the model! The Ariel 3 pictured in the publicity photograph below was made in the last years of the BSA Group. Powered by a Dutch 50cc Anker two-stroke engine the Ariel 3 tricycle was launched in 1970, and struggled to find a market; very few being sold. Such was the optimism at BSA preparations had been made to manufacture 2,000 a week. It turned out to be a costly mistake, one that they could ill afford to make.
In fact the National Motor Museum had at least 4 examples as runabouts on the complex, though no photographs seem to have survived. Our picture came from the VMCC archives.
First published in the Christmas 2000 edition of the newsletter of the Friends of the National Motor Museum