The Classic MotorCycle – September 2019

THE CLASSICMOTORCYCLE|SEPTEMBER 2019 7

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the case with AirFrance.In1949, the
airline transported more than 20,000,
passengers worldwide,compared to
6,000,000 in 1945.
TheMarkIII Sports Model wasregarded
as one of thebest–if not thebest –ofthe
post-Second World WarDouglas twins.
Some call the twomodel s(whichreplaced
the earlier,single modelMark Irange)
simply theSports Model and theMark IIIDe

Luxe (so no ‘Mark’ moniker for theSports

Model) butfor consistency we have calledit

the Mark II Sports Model to differentiate it

from theMark I.

Thebasic mark series machin es (and it

should be notedthere wasnoMarkII) saw

some updates and adjustments since its

initialreleasein1947and, althoughstill

cataloguedas‘III’inOctober 1949, in effect

theywerethe Mark IV.TheMkVwas listed

for1951. Total production ofMark series

modelswasjustover9500.

As afinalhurrah, acheck on thenumber

JYT147 reveals it isstill on theDVLA

databaseand still onaMarkIII Douglas,

registered in August 1948 ,whichwaslast

taxed in 2018,so it is mostlikel yinuse and

on theroad.

If you arelucky enoughto have that

machin einyourgarage, do let us know.

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