They leak, shake, rattle and spark - and sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The rarest of rare vintage motorcycles, these decades-old machines are challenging to start and difficult to ride. Yet they are becoming more expensive to purchase despite - and some say because of - the down economy.
For years, ultra-obscure bikes such as a 1936 Crocker Twin or a 1907 Curtiss V-8 were collected by a small handful of moneyed gearheads. They had such deep appreciation for the unique designs and temperaments of these machines that they'd willingly use their shins as heat guards, repurpose their feet as brake shoes and consider it a deal to pay tens of thousands of dollars to experience such evolutionary technology. Now they're paying six figures.
"Good machines have been performing well over the last few years, and replica breitling prices are still on the ascent," said Mark Osborne, head of the motorcycle and motorcars division at Bonhams & Butterfields.
Osborne noted that the most expensive bike ever auctioned through Bonhams - a supercharged 1949 Vincent Black Lightning - sold for $383,400 last year just as the worldwide economy was diving.
"We put it down to the fact that people like to buy something that they can touch, smell and enjoy," he said. "They can get out and use these things. It's not like paper held in a bank that's sort of disappearing on a daily basis."
The market for new tag heuer replica motorcycles is down 30 percent so far this year, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council. And sales of high-production vintage bikes such as Harley-Davidson panheads from the '50s, '60s-era Triumph Bonnevilles or '70s Honda CB750s have softened along with the economy.
But the market for motorcycle manufacturers of the long-ago, lesser-known and mostly defunct variety have seen dramatic increases. Prices for Crocker, a Los Angeles-based marque from the '30s that's known to have produced a mere 39 bikes, have quadrupled in the last five years. Other marques that are bringing top dollar include the British manufacturer Vincent, original-condition bikes from pre-World War II American manufacturers and anything with a racing pedigree.
"The factory race bikes, these seem to be the bikes that
embroidered patches get people's attention and seem to draw the most amount of money right now," said Jeff Ray, executive director of the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Ala.
The museum, which already owns 1,100 motorcycles, is on the hunt for more but is waiting for the market to settle.
"There's a saying in collecting motorcycles: You never pay too much, you just buy too soon," Ray said.
