used motorcycle price guide?

[dodursley]

late 80's 750 sport bike VFR, FZR were only £1000 for good condition bikes 2 years ago now £2000 seems a common price.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

Last Autumn, I purchased an old-school Aprilia RSV 1000 as an investment rather than a ride...will it pay off?

Could well do, Richard. I owned three Milles, and raced one of them in the Aprilia Mille MRO Cup. Love 'em.

The early first gen. bikes in top condition are already going up a little bit. The Haga and Edwards replicas are definitely getting collectible. I don't think you can go wrong really. It certainly won't go down in value now.

Bit of a shame to buy one just as a static investment. They are such good bikes to ride. Thrashing a RSVR around Donington is one of life's great pleasures.

Thanks for that. It is an awesome bike...mine's not the first version with the red calipers, but it still has a 2:1 exhaust and sounds a bit like an old-skool American V8 ticking over.

Looking back, I missed so much...when you could buy Duc 888s/916s for £2000/£3000, for instance. To say nothing of the days way back when when you could get a Le Mans I or a 900SS for £1000.

It will get ridden occasionally....but for most of the year where I live the roads are caked in mud and worse. The first time I went trail riding around here, the bike got dirtier on the tarmac roads than it did on the stony 'green' lanes. So it's dry days only.

[daveuprite]

Last Autumn, I purchased an old-school Aprilia RSV 1000 as an investment rather than a ride...will it pay off?

Could well do, Richard. I owned three Milles, and raced one of them in the Aprilia Mille MRO Cup. Love 'em.

The early first gen. bikes in top condition are already going up a little bit. The Haga and Edwards replicas are definitely getting collectible. I don't think you can go wrong really. It certainly won't go down in value now.

Bit of a shame to buy one just as a static investment. They are such good bikes to ride. Thrashing a RSVR around Donington is one of life's great pleasures.

sounds a bit like an old-skool American V8 ticking over.

Yeah, great isn't it. When we raced the Mille Cup there were about 40 bikes on the grid. It sounded like a squadron of WWII bombers when we took off.

It was a bit before the days of youtube and cheap decent helmet cams, so there's very little footage of the Mille Cup. But here's a lap with Daz Jones (who won the series 2 or 3 times). I bought this bike from him at the end of the season, and I'm somewhere behind (probably well behind!) on my first Mille R in this vid:



Can't find any video with sound of a grid start, which is a shame.


As to the price of older bikes, it's really just a matter of spotting which ones are at the bottom of their depreciation and about to rise. I have a 1997 TL1000S in the garage that might go up soon. Also watch for top condition grey import 400s, like FZR400RR and ZXR400s. The RVF400 Honda has already started rising fast (on the back of the absurd RC30 prices) and these other little 400s are the next to go I reckon. Too late for cheap 80s 2 strokes - all the good 350LCs etc have gone past £5k now.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

Thanks, I enjoyed that.