New WWII motorcycles in crates?

MD

MD

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When I was a young teenager in the 1960s there were rumours that there were warehouses full of brand new WWII war surplus army motorcycles packed in grease in crates and all you had to do was buy one and clean it up and assemble it.

Despite the rumours, I never once then or since saw one, or heard of one actually purchased and assembled.

In fact, despite being an army surplus catalogue addict at the time I never ever saw such a vehicle listed for sale.

Did any of you ever hear this folk tale?
 
I heard of the rumour, and also the one about someone findind one, still in the crate, in a farmers old barn. No pics. though.:)
 
I know a guy that says in the early 70's he ran into a couple P-51 Mustangs in parts in crates at an auction. I think he said they went for about 2-3K.
Unreal if true.
Again, no pics, but it was the 70's, Man!
 
In the early 60's there were still crates of assorted stuff in warehouses. Not any more though. Those days are long gone. Friend on mine has a milsurp motorcycle. No idea where she got it. Colossal pain in the butt if you need parts. And worse if you don't fix 'em yourself. Jeeps are the same way.
A Mustang in a crate on the 70's would have been worth far more than a few grand. More like 5 figures. Well over 6 figures now.
 
A boat parts dealer I knew in the 90's had three Korean war assault boat outboard engines still in crates.
He thought they were worth Thousands of dollars. They were sod as scrap when he went bankrupt.
 
Ya there all in the Eastern bloc countries . wear houses full. while in Yugo in the 90’s we distorted quite a lot of them . there is no feeling in the world like lining up WWII German 20mm AA guns , then driving the APC over them. Fook the history its just army stuff .the officers said . We wouldn’t want the hostiles to come back for them. Ju 88 engine parts still in German crates, oh we’ll bury them.
theres also watching the Engineers blow them up .. or spreading it all over the country side .. its raining AKMs and rpgs.
do I sound bitter.
 
Oh yeah, brand-new-in-the-grease Harleys for $75 but you have to buy a dozen to get the deal.

Heard it, many years ago but never saw one. My Army Harley (which I was riding) needed parts that were older than I am.... and not available since I was in diapers.

Still, I did run into a man who got a FEW new Harleys and even some pretty good Indian 741 Scouts. John Hall at Indian Motorcycle Sales and Service, 499 Young Street in Winnipeg, bought just over 300 motorcycles from the Military shortly after the War ended, along with SEVERAL TONS of boxed, brand-new spare parts. John and his brother tore down each and every one of those machines and rebuilt them before selling them. Most were pretty rough: there was a school for Dispatch Riders at CFB Shilo and bikes were 'rode hard and put away wet' at every base in Western Canada, once it became obvious which side would win the war. When the bottom end finally went out of my old 45, John went into his back shed/storeroom and brought out a green-cloth-wrapped package which was glued together with Cosmoline. He checked his 1948 parts book (which showed this at $65) and said, "I can let ya have this one fer 45 bucks, installed."

"It" was a brand-new-in-grease bottom-end set for my bike: both con rods, top bushings and bottom races, crank-pin, all 4 cages, crankpin nuts, spacers, and all 36 bearings. BRAND NEW. Older than me. And brand-new.

When John died in January of 1973, his shop stood for a few months, proprietorless, until a fellow in Calgary bought the remaining stock. They took THREE 5-ton vanloads of spares, mostly new-in-boxes, from that shop.... as well as a quantity of used parts.... and factory tooling..... and piles of original tool sets.... and an 80-inch Chief, rebuilt to "new"..... to Calgary.

And that was the last I ever saw of that Great Treasure.

What I wanted from John's shop was something else. I wanted the ancient Coke crate that I used to sit on when it was 30 below outside. John would stoke the tiny woodstove and pour a glass of Schenley Tradition into melted-snow water with an oil-slick on top..... and talk about the GOOD days in motorcycling: the 1920s which came before the Depression, the time in which there still were working Clevelands and Hendersons and Aces and Excelsiors on the road, then the gradual introduction of Matchless Silver Arrows and Triumph Speed Twins and....

"All gone now. All gone and no-one gives a sh*t any more." - John Hall, 1907 - 1973
 
i believe it was these items that formed the start of SIR (sidney I robinson) in winnipeg, that has since been aquired by cabelas. At least...tahts the story I heard! :)
 
knew a mechanic Sgt that brought a bike (OD Green not harley) back from Cyprus in 91. i was at the RQ shop in Calgary one late afternoon looking to scam some cbt boots. they were in the process of gassing it up while it still sat on the crate bottom. also OD Green. i got the story, Turk side find, much araki drank, and a deal for 4000 cypriot pounds was struck. he got it running, was still new, repacked in crate, restenciled the crate to i don`t remember what, and on the herc it went. the sgt knows who he is, and used to see him ride around calgary from time to time.i didn`t have to sign for the boots….
 
When I used to go to the vintage races at Westwood in the 1980's, there was a racer who had a minty very low mileage Harley WLC, he used it as a pit bike.

It was an unrestored, original machine, correct right down to the OD paint on the handlebar. While he was not the original owner, he did say when I asked him about it that it was purchased from a surplus retailer somewhere in the Lower Mainland after the war.

It was not crated, but was sold as an assembled bike, with zero to no miles on it. It had 600 on the clock showing when I first saw it, which was in 1987.

Post war, Triumph TRW's were sold as surplus at various outlets in Canada in the 1960's. Many were new, or almost new. The TRW is/was a 500CC flathead twin, used as DR bikes. They are not rare.

After riding a Bonneville or an Atlas, the TRW's were embarrassingly slow. Crown Surplus in Calgary had a row of them for sale. I can't remember how much, but after talking to other riders about them, the price was too much for what they were. I had the chance to ride one later in life, top speed was about 40-45 mph, and it was not an enjoyable bike to ride at that speed, at least for me.

Odd bit of trivia...the cylinder head of a Triumph TRW, always had a odd look to it. Looked very industrial. That's because the head first saw the light of day as part of a Triumph industrial engine, used as an APU and was mounted in Lancaster bombers during WW2.
 
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I can remember BSA motorcycles new in the crates being sold at Hercules on Yonge St. in Toronto.
 
New motorcycles and jeeps in a crate are a fact......the problem is they are in the holds of cargo ships on the floor of the North Atlantic. The "new jeep in a crate" myth is a myth that will never go away and anyone with a jeep (TommyinBC and Hawkshadow) will hear that one more then once.
 
Thanks guys. Of course as a 13-14 year old kind in Port hardy on Northern Vancouver Island I wouldn't have known about what stores had what where.
 
TRW had a bad rep for warping heads; you were always torquing the damned things down.... again.

Problem is that the heads were too thin and were made from soft Aluminum. If they had been a bit thicker and made from Silicon-Aluminum alloy (as were the Harley WLC heads) they would have been fine. One thing you CAN do for them is make extra-thick, extra-wide torque washers for the head-bolts. This will spread the torque and provide a more solid mounting which warps less. TRW actually HAD washers similar to this when they left the factory, but most guys got them all mixed up, chucked them and replaced them with hardware-store washers which didn't do the job.

TRW is also interesting as the precursor to all modern bikes with an AC system. Up until then, motorcycles were built with DC generators and battery/coil ignition or a DC generator for the electrics and Magneto for ignition.

TRW was gutless because it was designed that way, purposely. The whole bottom-end of the motor is off a 350 twin, mated to a 500cc flathead top end. Get one running right and it will go and go. I still have one here. Maybe time to rip it down and start rebuilding......

NICE little bike, though. Fast enough to kill you, docile enough that you don't want to.

Pretty close to perfect.
 
I have 20 years in the military and I've been hearing rumors of Harley, Willis Jeep, Iltises and old rifles still crated. It's all BS IMO. The only bike still in the crate I've seen so far was at Crown Army Surplus in Calgary,
It was a TRW500 Ex-Canadian Army Issue Triumph 1952 you can see a picture of it on their Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/#!/CrownSu...0.1399323447./264194523593948/?type=3&theater
 
In the early 80's...I saw with my own eyes 5 of the TRW's in CFB London when picking up some stuff I won at auction thru Crown assets.
One had a hole in the crate and they were all complete and new. I remember the Triumph logo on the outside of the crate. I inquired about them and the fellow at time said they were going to Museums as NOBOBY bid on them..... That was early 1980's. A created one was in CFB Borden vehicle museum about 8 years ago..un-assembled. One of the five from London???
 
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