Douglas 494cc transverse flat twin Endeavour 1935 framed BMS picture free p&p UK For Sale

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Douglas 494cc transverse flat twin Endeavour 1935 framed BMS picture free p&p UK:
$15.50

A neatblack and white pictureof the 1935Douglas 494ccEndeavour

The text on the picture is as follows:-

\"The 1935 Douglas 494 cc Transverse Flat-twin Endeavour\"

NEVER was a machine more truthfully named. In 1934, the Bristol firm of Douglas was in troubled waters financially, not a new experience, snd a winning design was needed urgently. A handful of loyal workers banded together to hand-build the prototype of a revolutionary machine for the annual Motorcycle Show. Time was against them.

They chose the classic layout for a shaft-drive model - a transverse flat-twin. By dint of day and night efforts they made it to Show opening day. Short cuts taken included using a side-valve flat-twin intended for a fore-and-aft arrangement; and incorporating the final-drive crownwheel- and-pinion from an Austin Seven car. Their endeavours were immortalized in the name chosen for the newcomer, the Endeavour.

Technically, the most interesting feature was the way the valve seats were cut in a nickel-iron plate for all the world like a thick gasket trapped between the light-alloy cylinder barrels and the light-alloy heads. It was an almost Heath Robinson notion, yet it really worked. In fact the entire machine functioned quite well when it got into production. Some are still running in the hands of vintage enthusiasts to this very day.

Sad to relate, the 68 x 68 mm Endeavour did not save the old Douglas firm financially. Enthusiasts for ideal machines are ever eloquent in their demands but always minority customers when it comes to the crunch. The average buyer wanted something more conventional, sporty and certainly cheaper.

The current vogue at that date was the positive-stop footchange which after some five years was surplanting the tankside handchange mechanism in every maker\'s range. That was one feature the Endeavour did not have. Within six months of its production, all Douglas manufacture ground to a halt for lack of funds. When it was resumed after financial reorganization, Pride and Clarke, the well-known London dealers, were sole distributors. They cut the price of the shaft-drive twin from £72½ to £49½ to get sales moving, later raising the price tag to £59½ in 1936, the final year of availability.

Features included twin exhaust pipes and silencers, forward-facing single carburetter between the widely-splayed front-down-tubes, side- acting kickstart, single-plate engine-speed clutch, footboards contoured to suit the cylinderheads, and a magneto plus generator mounted atop the engine and driven from the crankshaft nose, all of which may be seen in this \"Motor Cycle\" drawing of the day - C.E.Allen.

Copyright technical drawing by permission of \"Motor Cycle\" London EC4.\"

A greatpicturein a30 x 24 cm. (12 x 10 inch) size clipframe.

The picture offered does NOT have the \"SAMPLE\" watermark!!

Douglas 494cc transverse flat twin Endeavour 1935 framed BMS picture free p&p UK

$15.50