I have a complete albeit non running patrol car. I have been in touch with George Helm and while he has forgotten more about R/E than any ten people, the patrol car was not some thing he spent a lot of time with.
My questions are as follows: Where was the vin number located on the frame if it existed at all?
What size battery was used? Was the utility boxed lined, if so with what.
Although my machine is complete the orginal box was removed in favor of a passenger seat, the orginal box was removed and stored. The floor of the box is there,but it looks like a liner should have been in the box, yes/no.
I don't think anyone still living has a lot of time spent repairing these models in there original form. Since Pashley made the frames for these it is likely that they chose their own place to put it. Royal Enfield put frame numbers on the steering head or neck of the frame as some call it. If they were like Harley Davidson they may have put no number on the frame at all. If that is the case, they would have used the engine number. RE frames in 1959 usually had a four digit number.
One of the contributors to the Royal Enfield board on the Brit Bike forum also owns one of these machines. He is a long time member of the Royal Enfield Owners Club of North America (REOC/NA) and lives in Canada if I remeber correctly. He has a large collection of the old Redditch UK made machines. An enquiry could be made at Brit Bike, to the REOC here, or the REOC in the UK.
As to the battery, I'm certain they used the same Lucas 6 volt battery as all the other RE/Indian machines made in that time frame. On the box, I would have no idea what if any lining was used there. I have only heard of a handfull of these machines still in existance but more are starting to surface. I have only seen images in the Indian Sales Corp Ads from the late 1950s and have never seen one in South Texas where I live. George Helm still has a motor of mine that I had him repair back in the 1980s and he keeps forgeting to send it back to me so I imagine he has forgoten a lot about the old RE Indian bikes too. He is too nice a guy for me to give him a hard time over it though.