Demographics - moving on the classic market

[Easy-X]

Chatting motorcycle projects today with someone and I mentioned the shifting goalposts of "vintage" and how the upcoming '80 bikes with their square lights and clocks do nothing for me. My interlocutor suggested thinking about the other end of the market...

Consider: people in the '60s tearing about on Triumphs, BSAs, Nortons. They pack it in, settle down with job and family. Kids leave home* and midlife crisis hits so they get their old bike back (or at least a similar model.) These people will now be in their 80s maybe even pushing 90. Can I be so bold as to suggest they'll likely give up riding such heavy, lumbering machines - few of which feature electric start - throw a cover over it and stash it in the back of the shed

Are we going to see a pile of old Brit bikes turning up at auction over the next ten years as the Boomers and Silent Generation shuffle off this mortal coil or are their Gen X & Millennial inheritors going to keep the flame alive and get the beasts back on the road?

*They did that more back in the day.
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[jeremyr62]

Hopefully, they all end up in a skip where they belong.

[A100man]

[Moxey]

Oddly enough been discussing this with a neighbour, his Triumph Bonnie is a 63, reckons despite scarcity of parts lately prices have been dropping.

He also has a Powervalve 350 which conversely he reckons has skyrocketed in cost for parts.

I suppose once there's no one left to wear the rose tinted specs some models will lose their value.
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Current: 02 FZS 1000 Some Bike Pics...
'I was too busy paying attention to pay attention'

[MarJay]

Yes this is a thing. Veteran cars are worth jack sh*t because nobody has nostalgia for them any more and the only reason you'd want one is to do the London to Brighton Masochism... I mean Rally.

This is what I think is amusing about these nutters with vast new in box collections of Star Wars figures and think they are going to become more and more valuable over time. "This is my son's inheritance!"

Do you think your son would care about a NIB Greedo with the correct plastic blaster? He's going to throw them in a skip when they are worthless. Maybe if it was a Mandalorian or Grogu figure? *shrug*.

I kind of fancy a 60s bike, but when I could buy a brand new Enfield Interceptor, Triumph Bonneville or BSA Gold Star which will be reliable, oil tight and won't need the valves lapping every 50,000 yards why would I bother?
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British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[Easy-X]

[Robby]

I would question just how many bikes have been stuck in the back of a shed for decades.

As far as I'm aware the whole classic = valuable thing is fairly recent. I've heard anecdotes about lots of pre 1950s bikes getting scrapped in the 60s and 70s because they were just seen as old, worthless junk.

Not many people are going to have enough shed or garage space to put a bike in there and forget about completely. Those that do are likely to have friends of family that have persuaded them to sell.

The majority of the ones for sale right now aren't silly money, unless you go after something with a reputation like a nicely restored bonneville. You can get your generic 50s or 60s average bike for the price of a 2-3 year old generic average bike. So I would suspect that the majority of people that really want a classic bike already have at least one.

[WD Forte]

I've always had contempt for the term classic when applied to any old shite
just cos its old.
It's emperors new clothes bollocks
I rode the tail end of the 60's bike and cars and they were mostly poor in terms of efficiency, reliability and performance compared to later models and the relatively new 'Jap crap' was showing them up.

Why, I would ask are they so fucking expensive?
I had a 59 Thunderbird which was old and cheap when I got it for £30 and I liked it
as an old hack.
Years later when a mate begged me to buy his beat up old CX500 ( my first CX) for £100 I realised despite its sorry state, it was a better bike than my old Thunderbird which even at that time would have commanded a four figure price just based on its rarity.

Yes I'm aware that ironically even the CX is now regarded as a 'classic' by some
but to me they were always cheap and if understood and serviced correctly,
reliable us fuck old things that looked better if ratted up a bit.
I never paid more than that initial £100 for one and you would be hard pressed to give one away at that time so spares were cheap so many of us has sheds full of stuff.
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bikers smell of wee

[stinkwheel]

Well, if anyone has a vincent black shadow taking up space in their shed they are wanting rid of, I'll come and take it away for them. Won't even charge them for the diesel.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[WD Forte]

Vincents are some of the few exceptions where I'd allow the term classic to be used,
I don't recall ever seeing one on the road.
They only made 6825 twins between 1937 and 1955
and less than 2000 of these were Black Shadows and
they were something of a mythical beast even back then.

This is where sucking air through your teeth and saying
"ooh, cant get the parts mate" is probably relevant.
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bikers smell of wee

[slowasyoulike]

I'm mid-fifties and, while my garage is often home to all sorts of undeserving old heaps, I have zero interest in the golden age of British motorcycling. Nice enough to see stuff like that at shows, but own one? No thanks.

I could fancy another Soviet flat twin outfit for camping trips and general plodding, save for the fact that the prices have spiralled way out of proportion with their true value (£0-250) as machines which require almost constant fettling in order to stop them becoming a garden ornament.

[Bhud]

I've thought about the same questions. Yes, I think the old British bikes will get a lot cheaper as fans of them age out, and estates try to get rid of them in bulk as they've been rotting in a corner of someone's overgrown garden for decades anyway.

I also think the perceived scarcity of them is artificial; bikes were manufactured in huge numbers, and exported to all around the world. Look up "motorcycle junkyard" on Youtube and you'll see that America has them all:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=motorcycle+junkyard

Quite likely, big piles of old wrecks exist in this country too, on prime real estate that beneficiaries will want to put to more profitable uses as quickly as possible before executors' fees get out of control.

Prices for these old bikes get pumped expertly on social media. Often, it's multigenerational (father working with son to set up the smoke and mirrors). For example, the "bart" channel on Youtube (which I mentioned when it was small, as I could easily see what he was doing). He combines his editing skills with an old-school marketing and sales pitch, and this works well. The result: artificial scarcity and temporary demand stimulation pending a dump of someone's "yard" before he dies. Think I mentioned Henry Cole in the past, too. What will happen to his bikes? I think he carries on working and in the process gets rid of them before checking out. I'm not being excessively cynical, just stating what I believe to be true.

A good example of how this works is old Harleys. You've got some absolutely world-class promotion and marketing of some kind of American dream - Hollywood, an attempt to weave a spell of authenticity and lived experience, etc. which high net worth younger people in Japan would pay through the nose for. Youtube channels, museums, bearded mechanics, people filmed living an authentic life (whatever that is), etc. Result: shovelheads pumped to nearly $100K. All thanks to the Japanese market. Until, of course, prices collapsed and you can now pick one up for a few thousand USD.

Same thing happened with cars. The whole circus came to town in the 80s with classic cars. There's a fan club, a members club, events where you can make PAYG friends, TV shows, car shows, etc. Result: Arab oil sheikhs finally bought into the idea a Ferrari Dino is worth millions upon millions of USD, and all the monied afficionados wanted an Austin Healey. Now look at the prices of those... Major dump since their heyday when they were vaunted as desirable classics.

That's where (or, rather, when) I think we currently are with British classic bikes. 1987 before the dump.

As for the question of whether the succeeding generation (now in their 40s and 50s) will pick up the torch (or to put it more succinctly, be the exit liquidity for these old guys), I can't rule it out but I'd be surprised if they did. When I've raised similar thoughts with Japanese classic bike collectors, they quickly became irritated, and one of them said, "Do you think you're the first to have thought about these things?" So no, I'm not the first, and that's the point.

[stinkwheel]

Which comes down to you should buy a bike because you want it and will enjoy riding it. Or enjoy the process of getting it into a state where you can ride it.

So I wouldn't thank you for a BSA starfire but I quite enjoy my enfield bullet, even though on paper the starfire is probably a better bike. Also big nostalgia hit on my current Minsk project when a CG125 would outperform it in every respect but it isn't being built to keep in a shed. I also highly doubt anyone will want to buy it off me.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[A100man]

[Capt Sisko]

I have an acquaintance who is a vehicle examiner for insurance companies, not for crash damage, but for authenticity & roadworthiness and he's seen a surge in call for inspections on mid 70s & 80s cars & bikes and with a Sierra RS Cosworth now fetching six figures, insurance companies are now double checking is what they're asking to insure genuine and because of the age, is the restoration mechanically sound as well.

On the other hand, he's seeing collections of older cars & bikes being sold off by either owners who are too old to drive and by the estate of those that have passed aware, and often the vehicles aren't reaching what the seller thought they were worth. Something special, a famous name or connection and /or it was just good will hold it's value, for while, but a nothing special universal British 50s or 60 single or twin that's not original and in truth wasn't that good in the first place, what value that nowadays?

Interesting job though.

[Bhud]

When it comes to insurers, I can understand why they might take extra precautions at this time, because the classics market is tanking and a lot of people who should have known better bought into the hype. Things might spontaneously self-destruct, like an unsellable country pub in an area of low demand for pubs and high demand for housing.

I have long thought classic prices were overdue a correction. It's like 1987 classic cars.

I remember there was this discussion here a couple of years ago, and I dug out prices of some classic bikes. GPZ 750 Turbos were selling for £17k to £18k. Currently, there's one for sale on Ebay for £8500. That's a huge drop, and consider that that's a useable bike, i.e. it's not bad at being a bike, unlike old British and American bikes, where the novelty wears off when Mr Big Boy Fancy Pants has spent 20 minutes trying to kick start it, got their Instagram clip out of it, faced a funny noise and huge puddle of oil when they got to the end of the road, and suddenly are cured of their infatuation. All bikes do basically the same thing, like sunglasses, but after a certain amount of time no matter what the colour of tint of the sunglasses, they don't make a sunny day any more interesting. That's why, if a bike is interesting to me, it's worth max £3K to me.