Collecting Made Easy

Collecting made easy

UP FRONT

David Edwards

OOPS, I DID IT AGAIN... AND AGAIN. I’D promised my long-suffering savings account that no more project bikes would cross my garage’s threshold-at least not until my Indian Four/Ford Flathead V-Eight restoration was done with. The crossbred concoction, bodged together in 1954 by Texas car mechanic Bill Drabeck, spans nine-and-a-half feet between fendertips and displaces almost a half-ton. Locked in a leaky shed for a quarter-century after the man’s death, it was definitely the worse for wear when I bought it. Trucked to California for dismantling, it harbored so many rodent nests in its various nooks and crannies that the guys at Jerry Greer’s Indian Engineering, wary of catching some deadly disease, nicknamed it the “Hanta Virus Special.”

The big white bike is chock-ablock with examples of Drabeck’s backyard genius. The motor is Ford’s smallest flattie, the liquid-cooled “V860" (so-named for its 60-horse output), displacing 136 cubic inches, or 2228cc. To this, he fitted a Harley-Davidson fourspeed tranny-mounted left to right-coupled to the engine via a 90-degee bevel drive that looks like it came right out of a West Texas oilfield. In need of more pothole protection than the Indian girder fork was up to, Drabeck genned together an extended Harley Hydra-Glide front end. He wanted to keep the Four’s sweeping fender, but now it fouled on the custom-built radiator, so he simply cobbled up a pair of axle carriers (since rewelded and magnafluxed) that bolted to the bottom of the fork tubes and moved everything forward about an inch. The bike is füll of this kind of inventive, homebrewed problem-solving. Worth saving, yes, but raising the Titanic might be cheaper. Definitely not your textbook restoration project.

No such thing, actually, as I’ve found out over the years. A few weeks ago, a friend looking to broaden his motohorizons with an old bike asked for advice in picking out a classic.

First thing, I told him, go with a bike you really, really like, either for its looks, its sound its racing lineage, its gas tank shape, whatever. Peter Egan calls this the Garage Contemplation Factor. If you can’t pull up a lawn chair, crack open an ale and let your eyes wander all over the bike for large blocks of time, think about another model. Covet a Vincent Black Shadow for its resale value or a Triumph Bonneville just because everybody else has one, and you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. It does help, however, if the bike you choose isn’t so obscure that only yourself and some tweedy old geezer in Newcastleunder-Lyme even care if one exists—ask me about my Velocettc GTP sometime.

My best advice, especially if you’re after a high-point blue-chipper, is to find a restoration outfit that’s turning out firstrate examples. Spend time sniffing around concours ¿’elegances and the same shop names will bubble to the top. Ask the owners about their bikes, what trials and tribulations they went through during the restoration process and-most important-does the bike get ridden regularly. Glamorous “trailer queens” are much easier to build than are sound bikes that run well and stay together.

Once you’ve settled on a couple of shops, get to know the people involved, either by phone or, better yet, in person. If the principals of a company are too busy to spare you some time, or summarily dismiss you as a mouth-breathing tire-kicker, cross ’em off your list.

Here’s why you need to trust the restorer: You're going to ask him to find you a bike. He’ll be in touch with his clients and know when one wants to move a motorcycle. The key here is that the buyer of a recent, professionally restored machine will almost never pay what the bike actually cost to bring back to life. Virtually all ground-up, spokes-to-pinstripes restorations will set the owner back more than fair market value of the bike.

Disadvantage to this method is that even at a discount, the asking price may be big-ticket-nicely done Bonnevilles can nudge five figures these days. Short of disposable coin? See your banker.

Sure, you can go the opposite way. Buy a low-bucks basketcase, then write regular checks to the restorer. Either way, you’re essentially making monthly payments, but now you’re the guy paying full pop for the restoration, which could take up to three years.

I actually followed my own counsel with my 1948 Chief. A “best-of-everything” resto by Indian Engineering, it came on the market three years after its rebuild, showing less than 200 miles on the clock. The motivated owner took my low-ball offer, and I had an award-winning Indian (Best Chief, 1999 Del Mar Concours) for $6500 under the original restoration bill.

Of course, this is the only time I’ve heeded my own advice, which is how my latest two acquisitions came to be. A friend had a failed BSA chopper project; any interest at, say, $200? Turned out to be a knocked-about 1958 650 Super Rocket motor and frame, 6-inchover fork, struts in place of shocks, a Sportster gas tank and not much else. But for a couple of C-notes, how could I say no? Besides, I’ve got a hankering to build a café-racer that’s not the usual, ho-hum Triton special.

The next find 1 blame on my dog Ned. Out for a walk along the local powerline trail, he got all tail-waggy about something over the berm. Not the usual bird or rabbit, but a Suzuki TS90 trailbike, early-’70s vintage, about 15 feet down the ravine. “Oh that,” said a fellow dogwalker, “that’s been there at least a year.”

So with work gloves, rope and girlfriend Peggy in tow (“Remind me again why we’re ¿oing this...”), I returned to the trail and rescued the little Suzuki. The police seem to have no record of it being stolen, and it’s too far gone for anything other than parting out, but at least it’s not stuck out in the shrubs rusting away. I’ve taken a particular liking to the TS’s taillight assembly, small and with a series of lightening holes in its sides.

Might make a nice addition to someone’s BSA café-racer.