Posts Tagged ‘motorcycle auction’

Motorcycle News: National Motorcycle Museum and Moto Guzzi Rallies

Posted: March 2, 2023 in Motorcycle, Motorcycle advocacy, Motorcycle news
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ijustwant2ride.com

Down Shift – National Motorcycle Museum is closing.

Sadly, the National Motorcycle Museum will close its doors in September. The museum in Anamosa, Iowa, was opened 22 years ago by the owners of J&P Cycle John and Jill Parham. John passed away in 2017.

Their notification stated, “We have struggled for several years to cover wages and utilities partly due to low visitations.”

The museum states that it will auction its collections to pay outstanding bills. This auction will include both motorcycles and memorabilia that the Parham’s collected over their many years in the motorcycle industry.

My Take Just another sad note reflecting both the results of the pandemic and the state of the motorcycle industry in America.  Also, I am not sure that Anamosa, Iowa is a destination for a lot of folks. I would not be surprised if more “niche” museums closed their doors in the near future.

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Up Shift – Moto Guzzi Experience

Moto Guzzi motorcycles are sponsoring 3 events around the USA.  The first up is in Bozeman, MT (June 28th-July3rd 2023).  The second is in the Smoky Mountains starting in Knoxville, TN (August 30th-September 4th). The third Moto Guzzi Experience runs October 18th – 23rd in the Ozark Mountains around Bentonville AK.

All these events include tour leaders and support vehicles, and you can rent a Moto Guzzi if you do not want to ride yours to the event. Base costs? $2,500 if you rent a motorcycle, $1,500 if you bring your own and passengers cost $1,000. That cost includes hotels, full board (minus alcohol), the tour leader and support vehicle.

Folks who attend the event will get a discount on a new V100 Mandello or a V85TT afterwards.  Discounts of up to $1,250 on a new bike is never a bad thing.

My Take: I am assuming these events are going to be similar to what the Harley Owners Group does with their annual rallies If that is the case it should be a lot of fun. In fact, we were at one of the HOG rallies last year in the Smokey Mountains. If you attend of these Moto Guzzi events let me know I would like to hear how it turned out.

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Ride on, Ride Safe

The Most Expensive Harley Davidson Motorcycle Sold At Auction

Posted: October 26, 2015 in Motorcycle news
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HD-LHS

Based on what I can find this is the most (and only) Harley Davidson Motorcycle in the top 10 list.

When a “barn-find” Harley-Davidson racing machine and sidecar is found after 50-plus years in storage in Australia and then sent to auction, the bidding is sure to be fierce. The expectations were that the bike would go for about US $100,000.

But the bidding was greater than expected.  The bike set a new Australian auction record with a final winning bid of AUD$600,000 (US$420,000).

What caught everyone’s wallet on fire? A circa-1927 FHA 8-Valve V-Twin racer complete with its scramble-type sidecar.  (The motorbike’s side car was added to the motorbike after it made to Australia and can be angled to adapt to what tracks the bike was running on according to the auctioneer.) hd2

The 8-Valve racing Harley is one of the rarest and most collectible models in HD circles.There were fewer than 50 built which makes it an exceptionally rare machine anywhere in the world. So for one to turn up in an Australian shed after decades certainly set the motorcycle collector world abuzz.

These powerful bikes were only offered to up-and-coming racers of the times and were not available to the general public. “To many collectors the engine is really what makes this bike. This was probably the holy grail for Harley-Davidson in this era” stated Mr. Boribon the auctioneer.

As noted above the fact that less than 50 were built makes it rare, the fact that a lot of race bikes ended there racing lives in spectacular fashion contributes to even lower numbers left in existence.  I am sure more than a few of the 50 blew up or crashed on the track. So based on those facts it is very surprising that very few 8-Valve racing bikes have survived from that era.

This is the only Harley in the top ten most expensive bikes at auction coming in at

1 – US$580,000 – 1910 Winchester

2 – US$551,200 – 1915 Cyclone Board Track Racer

3 – US$480,000 – 1939 BMW RS255 Kompressor

4 – US$463,847 – 1922 Brough Superior SS80

5 – US$452,234 – 1926 Brough Superior SS100

6 – US$450,000 – 1958 Ariel 650 Cyclone

7 – US$448,156 – 1929 Brough Superior SS100

8 – US425,943 – 1939 Brough Superior SS100

9 – US$420,000 – 1927 Harley Davidson FHA 8-Valve V-Twin racer

10 – US$394,101 – 1934 Brough Superior SS100

(Bumped from the top 10 –  US$383,317 – 1949 Vincent Black Lightning)

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Top 10 most expensive motorcycles sold at auction.

Posted: October 23, 2014 in Motorcycle, Motorcycle news
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winchester-1910-

 

I wrote this article a few days ago.. and it is now out of date!!!!  The Harley Davidson “Captain America” bike from Easy Rider is now the most expensive motorcycle sold at auction.  Going for $1.35 million US this is reportable the bike that was destroyed at the end of the movie and rebuilt a few years later.  The “other” Captain America bike was stolen before the movie was finished and has never been seen again except for the fact that the man who authenticated this motorcycle as also authenticated another one as well….. hummmm.  Here is a link to help explain this crazy story.

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I ran across a couple interesting articles on motorcycles at Gizmag.com on this subject. I was quite surprised at what I found as I read about the results of motorcycle auctions. I will not go in a lot of details, you can use the links below to read that and you should. The link also discusses the content of the top 100 bikes sold at auction.

What surprised me the most was the fact that the number one most expensive bike was one of which I have never heard. The top ten are:

1 – US$580,000 – 1910 Winchester

2 – US$551,200 – 1915 Cyclone Board Track Racer

3 – US$480,000 – 1939 BMW RS255 Kompressor

4 – US$463,847 – 1922 Brough Superior SS80

5 – US$452,234 – 1926 Brough Superior SS100

6 – US$450,000 – 1958 Ariel 650 Cyclone

7 – US$448,156 – 1929 Brough Superior SS100

8 – US425,943 – 1939 Brough Superior SS100

9 – US$394,101 – 1934 Brough Superior SS100

10 – US$383,317 – 1949 Vincent Black Lightning

Turns out that the person who bought the bike was a gun collector. I am very aware of the collector’s value of the name Winchester as several folks that I know collect Winchester. According to what I read only about 200 were made and only a few survived.

top-10-most-collectible-motorcycle-marques-22

Winchester attempted to “diversify” and move into motorcycling along the lines of BSA and Royal Enfield which were also gun makers. Winchester had the bikes built and badged by another company and only stayed in the bike business for a few years. You can learn more about at the links below.

Now if you look at all of the top 100 most expensive bikes sold you would find that:

Brough Superiors in top 100 – 23

Vincent-HRDs in top 100 – 14

Harley-Davidsons in top 100 – 9

BMWs in top 100 – 8

Crockers in top 100 – 7

Indians in top 100 – 5

Ducatis in top 100 – 4

Flying Merkels in Top 100 – 4

Hendersons in Top 100 – 2

Iver Johnsons in Top 100 – 2

Hildebrand & Wolfmüllers in Top 100 – 2

 

To read more on the Winchester click here.

To read more on the Top 100 click here.