Author: sloper29

I don’t generally highlight machines selling at auction on this site – it feels a bit like free advertising, which is definitely not the Club’s role – but sometimes a machine comes along that deserves comment.

I wrote recently about two unusual ‘barn finds’; good things, they say, come in threes, so maybe this is the third. Iconic Auctions are selling a remarkably original 1936 Douglas Endeavour at their auction on 19th April 2026. CLX 301 was first registered in London, in March 1936 according to the DVLA website, and the auctioneers state that it has been in the same ownership since 1976. It is one of around 30 of this model known to the Club, and production estimates vary. One of the designers, Eddie Withers, estimated that around fifty machines were built; engine and frame numbers listed by the LDMCC suggest perhaps around one hundred. Whatever the figure, Douglas Endeavour motorcycles were an uncommon sight in the 1930s and are an even rarer one today.

For readers unfamiliar with the Endeavour, it was a shaft-driven transverse twin, a configuration more usually associated with BMW. Rushed into production in conditions of great secrecy in time for the London Olympia Show of November 1934, this radical new machine won plaudits from the motorcycling press of the day. At £72.10.00, the buying public were more sceptical; hand gearchange and side valves were already passé for a top of the range machine.

Whatever its merits and shortcomings, the Douglas Endeavour was an adventurous design for its time; one of the great ‘what ifs’ of the British motorcycle industry. If a Douglas Endeavour is on your list of must-have motorcycles – well, these opportunities don’t come along often …

I’m often asked to help identify Douglas machines – and it can be quite a challenge. A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes, – though one silver flat-tanker can look much like another. A Mk. IV looks very like a Mk. V apart from the rib in the front mudguard … However, with a basic understanding of the era from which the machine dates, frame, engine and gearbox numbers usually permit accurate identification. A guide to these numbers and where to find them can be found here.
Finally, and perhaps less obviously, for UK-registered machines the registration mark can prove invaluable. The reason for this is that most of the Douglas machines still in existence are listed in the LDMCC’s Machine Register. Armed with the registration mark and a bit of patience, it’s surprising how often ‘newly discovered’ machines are already known to the Club.
I’m sure the Club’s machine registrar could give me an accurate figure for the number of machines listed, but an informed guess would be around 4,000 – there’s a fair chance that the machine you’re trying to identify could be among them!