High price for parts – well, we live in a capitalist society, how else can it work.
The story with that sandcast Honda can be found here.
www.worldmotorcycles.com/index.html
I bought Motorcyclist Retro for a while, but I think it has just about faded out.
But here is the thing about the Kawasaki. Here in North America we are sitting on the last big, untapped, best kept secret about vintage/classic Japanese motorcycles. THE GREAT AMERICAN TOURING BIKE.
Now you’ve noticed that these bikes don’t fetch a lot of money on ebay- if that current bike for sale in Florida was a Triumph T150/ BSA Rocket 3 it would be $5000 by now- inspite of it’s poor condition, but most buyers can’t see past the fibreglass. It really dates the bike and so they get ignored. Some do see past it , but as soon as they search for the parts once the fairing is removed i.e. fork ears, headlight bucket and fittings, lower handlebars, turn signal etc. – they aren’t out there. . Most people restoring these bikes want the naked version.
When Vic World decided to specialise in sandcast Honda’s , he sent out 1300 letters to all the Honda dealers offering to buy their NOS parts. Image making a business out 7414 bikes Honda built and finding the parts over 40 years later to do it. They currently sell for $39,500.
Now think of all the owner or dealer added Windjammers and Calafia fairings put on early Kz1300 and all those headlight buckets and forks ears that got removed to accommodate the fairing- where are they all ?–hanging in a shed somewhere- way back in some dealers parts room forgotten about. There must be hundreds of them somewhere.
And this is a situation perculiar to North America because this was the birth place of the modern tourer and where so many of the early naked bikes were sold, but with increasing demand to put a windshield on it. Of course by 1980 , the B2 came out – a factory built from the ground up tourer , and Voyager wasn’t far away. If 20,000 kz/z1300 were made, there still a huge number undiscovered still out there.
Business opportunity anyone--- maybe not
