Its sometimes hard to come to grips with some of the bikes we see for sale and the prices being asked, but bikes are like any commodity, supply and demand.
The asking price for this particular one is $37,000 AUS, thats a lot of money. Also claims it cost $28,000 to restore, once again a lot of money but maybe not unrealistic. Firstly the son of the restorer is a member of this forum so maybe he could give us an insight into the costs involved in this type of restoration.
The bike could certainly have been presented better, it could have been cleaned, the tyres pumped up and a bit of work putting into routing the cables correctly.
Going back to the $28,000. We all try to do as much to our bikes as we can ourselves, however there is no doubt the finished result with any restoration is directly related to the money spent on it. So imagine if you bought this bike unrestored in generally poor condition and took it to a proffessional restorer and said restore it to "factory" spec. Where I live the average mechanical repair place charges $100 per hour for labour, there are a lot of hours involved in a resto like this one. If you dropped the tank off to a proffessional and said restore it, take the dents out, rechrome, paint and fit badges and kneepads, there goes $2000. Wheels, fit new akront rims, spokes, do the brakes etc etc, probably $1500 per wheel easily. So you see the costs can climb steeply if you are totally relying on having someone else do the work. I can see $28,000 going into this resto if you are paying someone else.
Is the bike worth $37,000 ? well we are about to find out, if it sells it is, if it doesnt sell then it isnt.
You also have to consider the funds available to some people, most of us are "normal" members of the work force with average incomes. But if you are some big company executive earning a million dollars or more a year then $37,000 is peanuts. So if you see something sold for what appears to be a ridiculous price then maybe it was bought by someone in this category who just wanted it and money didnt matter in which case that sale is not a true reflection of value.
So when you see something like this come on the market at what appears to be a ridiculous price have a think about it, maybe, just maybe its not so ridiculous. Then again maybe its some fool who thinks his bike is worth more than it really is
