Just like Buddy

This genuine Ariel Cyclone twin, Sel Oak’s rare export sports 650, goes a well as it looks. And Buddy Holly bought the third one dispatched.

- Steve Wilson

The Ariel Cyclone 650 is a relatively rare and undoubtedly glamorous by association model, so the first thing to get straight is that Steve Carter’s machine is a genuine Cyclone.

It’s number 19 on the Cyclone Register, where the most famous owner, Buddy Holly’s, is number three. Steve got his eight years ago, with neither buyer nor seller realising what it was. The engine has been out and used in another of Steve’s three Ariel 650s, and with his Irish sense of fun he also admitted, to wind up fellow club members, to creating a ‘pseudoCyclone’ with approximate red paintwork and stainless mudguards.

But the Cyclone you see here is the real deal, with chromed steel mudguards as found on the Ariel HS scrambler single, and Glamour Red paintwork (rather than the lighter, more tomato-like Cherokee Red), both features which lifted the Cyclone’s looks. The Club’s Cyclone expert, Sandy Stewart from Canada, confirms that those two were key identifiers from new for genuine Cyclones, along with the ‘HS8’ stamped by the engine number. All can be duplicated of course, so after Buddy’s bike made $450,000 at auction late in 2014, it’s a case of ‘Cyclone buyer beware.

A mighty wind

Steve covers up to 20,000 miles annually on his twins, mostly in connection with his work as a roving specialist insulation contractor (See TCM, February 2019 for further details).

We'll return to the back-story, and questions of provenance, but right off it should be said that this Cyclone is a cracking motorcycle. Its looks have real style and, well, glamour. The red 4% imperial gallon tank, with its round red badges and white-lined black centre section, topped by a broad, bolt-on, ribbed chrome centre strip surrounding the petrol cap, is absolute eye-candy. The slim chrome HS mudguards lift the looks of the whole plot.