We are told that everything old is new again and nowhere is this more noticeable than in the prices that are being achieved by people selling old bikes. Try to buy an original Kawasaki Z1, for example and you’ll need very deep pockets indeed.
With this trend well and truly established in the marketplace owners and collectors are scouring their collections (and local barns) seeking for that illusive bargain that can be restored and on-sold for a handsome profit.
The bike that has been restored (in the words of my brother) from a grease spot on the floor is now a common sight on sales and enthusiast’s sites with everyone on the lookout for something to add to their collection. Those of us who can’t AFFORD to add an old bike to their collection merely admire from the sidelines and the true anoraks take great delight in pointing out things that are wrong with these bikes, from major faults to nit-picking errors that nobody except them really cares about.
This movement brings about a few problems. One is that most old bikes are not really capable of keeping up with (and stopping with) modern traffic so their usage is mostly limited to club runs with riders of similar bikes who belong to classic bike clubs.
Then there is the problem of obtaining spares. OEM is favoured but OEM spares for even the most popular old bikes are getting harder and harder to get (and more expensive). And, even if you can buy them, getting them freighted to your place is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive. I will get back to this point shortly.
Then there is the problem of what do you do if you CAN’T get the spares you need and what if you want a bike that looks and feels old but has real-world usefulness. Here is where the resto-mod movement comes in. An early 70s Z1 with a set of modern USD forks, modern brakes and superior swingarm and shocks certainly solves that problem but it runs the risk of being lampooned by the anoraks who decry any deviation from original. Now you know that I have always championed the cause of “original is best” but the resto-mod crew do have a point. After all, most of the bikes that have been singled out for such treatment were produced in their THOUSANDS back in the day so it’s not as if they were (or are) extremely rare).
And then there are the ugly ducklings, the bikes that nobody wanted then and still don’t. Some years ago I ran a whole series of articles about these bikes under the heading “Orphans”. It still makes an interesting read. Of course I have an orphan of my own, the CBX550 that was produced in limited numbers and for a limited time in the early 80s and then disappeared completely from sight until the last 5 years or so when it has suddenly reappeared at ridiculous prices with pretentions to being a “cult” bike.
Of course I must qualify my comments about “old bikes” with the statement that the definition of old is constantly changing. The Honda 750/4, for example, was first produced in the late 1960s. The Z1 is over 50 years old having been introduced in 1972 and we could go on multiplying examples.
The other day someone was asking a question on a social media page and it was actually a bit more intelligent than the usual “what sort of oil should I use in my…..” Someone remarked that they were looking at an early model VF750 to buy and they saw a VF700, like the one in the picture above. I declined the opportunity of saying that a simple Google search would have answered the question (it invariably does) and was pleased to see that someone DID answer it and correctly. The thread rapidly morphed into a discussion of so-called Tariff Bikes and, if you don’t know what they were, let me explain.
In the early 1980s Harley Davidson in the USA was staggering rapidly towards extinction. Sales were down, adoption of the brand by younger riders was almost non-existent (it still is) and the xenophobes started demanding that the government do something about it (as they always do). This time, however, they found a listening ear. The then President, Ronald Reagan, was a staunch nationalist and he went to his experts with the problem and asked how the American government could rescue the failing brand.
Their answer was simple. They imposed a steep tariff on motorcycles with engines bigger than 750cc. Why that size? I’m pretty sure you can work it out. The fine print of the legislation made it clear that small-volume European bikes were exempted so it crystal clear that the legislation was aimed squarely at the Japanese Big Four.
Protests at the highest level from the Japanese government yielded no result so the Japanese manufacturers quickly shifted their efforts towards making their existing “big” bikes compatible with the new regulations. By mostly reducing the stroke of the existing engines, they could bring in a bike that sneaked under the 700cc limit with very little loss in performance. To further nullify the effects of the tariff, Honda and Kawasaki shifted their bike bike production to American plants and thus avoided the tariffs altogether.
Most of the Japanese manufacturers had huge stocks of unsold pre-tariff bikes, too, so that also cushioned the effect of the heavy tariff.
I have no idea whether the tariff bikes are now seen as being more valuable than the non-tariff ones but they certainly were interesting.
In the end the tariffs were abolished. Harley re-invented themselves and saved the company (most agree that the tariffs themselves had vey little effect on the outcome) and the Japanese manufacturers just steam-rolled on dominating the market as they had done so before and the brief attempt by Harley to “buy” success was pretty much a failure.
