Vintage Cycle Werks About Page
  Vintage Cycle Werks Home Page | About Page | Photo Page | More Photo's | Even More Photos | What's New Page | Technical stuff | Contact Page | Favorite Links  

About Buying a Used British Motorcycle
The bulk of bikes still available are molested to some extent. It is very rare to find a totally original bike that has never been restored. These are very sought after because they make excellent restoration projects or original riders. The saying goes, "It is only original once". Most 30 to 50 year old Brit twins sell for $1,500.00 for very rough to 6,000.00 for excellent. Certain models, like Bonnevilles and BSA Gold Stars are more valuable examples. It is not financially feasable to restore a bike profitably. If you take a 2,000.00 lump to a restorer and pay 7,000.00 to him, you will probably end up with a 7,000.00 bike. This is also true of most automobile restorations.

I used to have one of those!
It is rare to be riding around without some one seeing the old girl and asking what year is it and saying "I used to own a so and so before I had kids".

The Brits are back
There has been a lot of interest in motorcycles the last 5 years. British bikes could be had for almost nothing 5 and 10 years ago and now a pile of greasy parts can be worth 2,000.00 depending on the model.
BSA, Triumph, and Norton all went out of business 20 plus years ago. Up until the late 60's they were more popular almost everywhere than American or Japanese bikes. It was the Honda 750 4 cylinder DOHC in 1969 that threw the British bike industry into a tail spin. Triumph rights were purchased by John Bloor and he started manufacturing World class bikes in the early 90's.

E-mail:
VintageCycleWorks

Web Site:
www.vintagecycleworks.com