Long term Motorcycle Investment

missile

MinuteNoodles said:

Whilst quite a few of mine would have been.....MK2 Escort Van (which rival RS's for their price), 

Really?

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If you want to invest in something, buy property, or if you can't afford it, gold- but not in a recession

It was £1450 an ounce last week, in 2015 you could have bought it at under £800.

Lovely and shiny, takes up hardly any space, easily portable.

A life sized solid gold statue of me would be worth about £66 million, and it would stand nicely in the back garden

ShandyAndy_2

Ok so maybe I want a bike and trying to justify it by thinking it’s an investment!

The current climate and me just having taken a pay cut to keep my job doesn’t really stack up.

I would like a late Gpz500 some day though.

The gold statue may get pinched?.

MinuteNoodles

missile said:

MinuteNoodles said:

Whilst quite a few of mine would have been.....MK2 Escort Van (which rival RS's for their price), 

Really?

Yup. I couldn't work it out either but I've seen them going for similar prices if they ever come up because they're as rare as hens teeth. A couple of years I found a pair of spare rear doors I'd bought and put in my uncle's garage 25 years earlier to go on said van but it never happened. They fetched several hundred quid.

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ShandyAndy_2 said:

Ok so maybe I want a bike and trying to justify it by thinking it’s an investment!

If it is an investment, you want the best condition that you can possibly afford. Never get a "fixer upper" because those original footpegs and indicators will now cost you £500 to replace.

If you just want a 'bike, get one in October-November, prices drop for Winter, and there will be people struggling for cash who will sell up for Christmas money, and finance another next Spring.

Jackmydad

Best reason to get any classic vehicle is because you want to enjoy using it.
Some people have made money in the past out of investment vehicles, but some people, a lot more I would guess, have also lost heavily.
It's like antiques and art. Buy it because you love it and enjoy it, not as an investment.

insert_random_name_here

I have doubled the value of one of my older BMW bikes in five years from £3,000 to around £6,000. However every other bike I have owned has either gone down in value or stayed the same.  Throughout that time I have taxed it, serviced it, and continued to ride it - although not massive mileage as I have other bikes available. 

Do some research. Ask yourself what are the most desirable old bikes right now? What gets talked about with the most affection on FB or forums? What are the ones that sell really quickly when they go on sale? For example, many of today's bikers would have learned on the venerable Honda CG125. Millions were made for very good reason, and they were licensed / cloned by Chinese manufacturers for years afterwards. Find a close-to-mint original CG125, decommission and store it properly and I reckon in 10 years it'll have grown in value. 

BOWFER

Little capacity bikes, like 125, just don't command the money.
Look at what an RD125 or Suzuki GP125 goes for in comparison to the 250/350/400/whatever.
They're bikes people (like me) couldn't wait to move on from, we don't want to ride them again.

Goudy

I have done this myself, but mainly for joy.
I bought a couple of bikes that have a particularly strong following. There is some value in the nostalgia models, but as written already they were the bikes young learners yearned for and not what they were riding at the time, most of it is now really out of reach, like the RD350, RGV250 and so on.

I stuck with what I liked and the big trailies from the 80's and 90's were pretty much rock bottom price wise when I started looking. It wasn't hard to sift through the rotters and pick up a nice XRV750. Since Honda launched the new one, the prices of the older ones have been increasing steadily.

I do a bit or Trials anyway, so I kept an eye out for some 70's and 80's twinshock stuff. Luckily at the time importers of used Japanese road bikes were stuffing their containers with used Honda TLR200's just to take up the spare space.
The couple I did pick up cheap soon tripled in price, though I kept a RTL 250, it really is worth it's weight in gold these days.(though they don't weigh much to start with, which helps).

Lastly, I took a punt on an Italian thoroughbred from the early 90's with a Ducati 900 Supersport Superlight edition.
I'm was a bit of a sucker for the Pantah back in the day and I thought a limited edition Ducati can't lose anymore than it already had and I was right.
I'm certain I didn't pay more than £2500 for any of these, the TLR's were hundreds and sold for thousands, but the main thing is they all give me some joy.