The contest for collecting cars and motorcycles is over. Jay Leno wins. Which yeah, if I had a bajillion dollars I’d have a two-warehouse collection of cars and bikes too. Jay does it classy though. His shop is a museum-quality display of so many rare and fantastic cars and motorcycles. I don’t imagine that I’ll ever be at a place financially where collecting cars will be an option for me. I’m okay with that, though. I’m not passionate about classic cars in terms of ownership. I do love refit hot rods and even restored classics. I think there are so many beautiful old cars, but I’m not really interested in owning any. There are great modern cars that’d be a lot of fun also, but it seems to me that the differences between an M3 and a Corvette wouldn’t be worth owning both. Then there’s the expense. Even just one collection-worthy car will set you back a nice chunk of change. Then, is your baby a daily driver? It’s far too easy to end up with garage queens, and where’s the fun in that?
Motorcycles and scooters, on the other hand, can be collected without breaking the bank — depending on what you’re interested in. A cherry classic Vespa, for example, won’t set you back more than $4500 or so. You can get spendy, of course. If you’re a Harley guy you could easily drop $25k for the bike of your dreams. Further up the grade, if you want a custom chopper you could shell out $45k-$70k. There are a plethora of classic and vintage bikes that’ll cost you a pretty penny as well. A custom-branded Orange County Chopper bike on TLC’s American Chopper will set you back at least $1M if you want it on the show. None of these interest me though. I don’t want anything flashy or priceless. I want bikes I can ride. So this is my collection wish list:
1. Vespa — Check!
These little italian bikes are what finally charmed me into scooter ownership. My first motorized two-wheeler was a Vespa. That P-200E, and now my Grantourismo 200L, have me convinced that no matter what there must always be a Vespa in my garage. I adore my GT. I fit on it really well and it’s just so much quicker than it ought to be. I love the looks of confusion I see when I pass cars on the highway. Mine is silver, my favorite color. I imagine that I’ll run my GT enough that I will eventually wear it out and need to replace it. That’s fine, just so long as my garage always has a wasp in it.
2. Honda Cub or clone
There are no fewer than two high quality Cub clones coming to the USA this year. The SYM Symba and the Fly Scout. However, Honda has announced that they’re reintroducing the Cub with an EFI 4T 100cc engine. No word yet on when it will come to the states. My preference is for the Honda — either one of the new ones or a classic. Shouldn’t be too hard to come by. With something like 60 million Honda Cub’s produced, I ought to be able to procure one. I want the iconic white and blue model.
3. Mid ’80s Honda Elite 80
This is not a bike that is likely to make it onto most petrol heads’ dream bike list. It’s on mine for one very important reason. You see, the seed of riding — the very root of my scooter enthusiasm came from seeing a Honda Elite 80 when I was a kid. I thought it was a spaceship that could take me anywhere. I’ve wanted one ever since. They’re pretty easy to come by and cheap to have (good ones can be had for as little as $1000), so there simply must be a red one in my garage.
4. KLD E-165 Electric Scooter (tentative)
This scooter looks really, really interesting. An electric bike with a 65 mph top speed and up to 100 miles of extended range for as little as $3900. Not only is it an amazing progressive design, but it just seems like it’d be the perfect for errands and running around town. Bottom line, I want to own and run something alternative energy. If the KLD turns out to be a quality machine, I want the velvet green one.
5. Triumph Bonneville
Triumph makes a line of motorcycles unlike anything else in the market today. From their highly acclaimed line of three cylinder “triple” power plants to their unique line of “modern classics” like the Bonneville. I love the Bonneville for a lot of the same reasons I love my MINI. It’s a throwback to the classic ’60s bike that put Triumph on the map in this country. It had performance, looks, and most importantly character. The modern reincarnation adds disk brakes, fuel injection, and the fantastic Thruxton variant, all without losing much of its classic character. The Bonny I want would be a standard Bonneville or a Bonneville black with some choice Thruxton parts installed to give it cafe racer looks, but the comfortable upright riding position of the standard Bonny. This is all the cruiser I’d ever want. I have no real interest in anything made by Harley, but I’d love to have a Bonny to go ride with my father-in-law on his Sportsters. I want one in red or white with custom Union Jack paintwork.
6. Triumph Tiger
I want to travel on a motorcycle. I want to go places — go long distances. I want to hop on a bike and ride up over the Rockies and back. Granted, I know people who have ridden scooters and even bicycles cross country. You don’t need a touring bike to tour, but I want a Triumph Tiger. I love the looks of it. I love its sporting capabilities. Most of all, I love the fit of it. I don’t fit well on many motorcycles and am too tall for most scooters. I fit perfectly on the Tiger. It’s actually designed for taller riders. The first time I sat on a Tiger in the showroom, the thought that went through my body was “I could sit on this bike for a straight month.” I love the idea of a distance bike with big powerful brakes and a tuned suspension. I want the white Tiger.
7. At least one bike of my own making
My interest in scooters and bikes actually started by watching American Chopper on TLC. I am not actually much of a fan of Orange County Choppers or their style of bikes. I watch the show because I love watching the building and fabrication process. What I quickly realized was that all OCC really does for most of their bikes is take off-the-shelf parts, pre-fabricated frames, crate motors, and other components and combine them with a small amount of custom metal work and custom paintwork. They’ve found a lot of success with this model, and more power to them. Thing is, I could do that. I’m confident that I could build my own motorcycle or scooter. I don’t have the metalworking skills just yet, but I did learn how to weld a few weeks ago. It’ll obviously take a lot of practice before I’ll be doing anything meaningful, but I am on my way. What I ultimately want to do is build at least one bike of my own design. I don’t want a chopper. I don’t want a streetfighter. I’m really not interested in any of these common custom types. I want to build a bike like it’s straight out of the ’30s — something from the era of streamliner locomotives. I’m absolutely in love with the 1934 BMW R7 pictured above. That bike will be a big influence on whatever I build.
So that’s the list. I want to someday have a diverse stable of two-wheelers, each with their own purpose. What’s exciting is that this whole fleet of bikes would cost less than even one truly interesting collectible car. Not counting the custom and what I already own, it’d only cost about $25k to collect everything I’d like to have. It’ll take years, of course, but I love that accessibility.
Post photo by Flickr user Superbitxo. Original here.
I used to watch OCC like religion but their battles, which at first were comical, grew tiresome. Once Vinny left and then Pauly Jr I left the fold. Jesse James was also interesting but his whining about his celebrity status got tiresome, something I find irritating about those who become celebrities and then whine!
I think “learning how to weld, a few weeks ago” is far from where those guys are. Off the shelf stuff like engines and frames is pretty typical of even the most custom builders [Jesse James] and “off the shelf” a bit misleading to suggest it’s not high end quality.
I think, should you ever build a streamliner type it, would be very kool to document the process not matter how long it took. I think you’d have an epiphany as to what it takes and the skills required but having read your blog now for about a year I’d say in the end you might succeed.
My collections range from WW2 hula girls to Coke signage, the later I have quite a lot of, I now have moved on to Bobbleheads, the classic advertising icons only, i.e., Alfred E Newman, Spy vs Spy, Alki Seltzer, bazooka Joe, Bib the Michelin guy and so on.
Collections are cool but all require so much time, maintenance, storage & money no matter what the scale of your addiction.
My thoughts.
So do I.
At the same time, it’s not rocket science. It’s a skill, not some sort of witch doctor magic. Good thing you’re here to keep my aspirations in check ;-)
Never “In Check” just checking… ;-)
BTW… couldn’t you go to work for Apple and help them make iWeb as functional as this blog? Also… maybe you could give them help with MobileMe! Cupertino is a nice place to live I have a sis that lives in Los Gatos and it’s nice.
Thanks for stopping by Twisty.
I’d go work for Apple on a moment’s notice. I do have a draw to the SF area too. That’s where they shoot Mythbusters and there’s a really active Maker and scooter community there. There are a handful of things, like iWeb or MobileMe, where Apple does seem to be phoning it in. MobileMe has gotten a LOT better in the past few months. When they first made the transition from .MAC to MobileMe, it was absolutely terrible. The new “find my iPhone” functionality is amazing though. I’ve put it to good use a couple of times now.
As for iWeb, it is pretty abysmal, you’re right. This site is done on WordPress and actually, it’s not that hard to get a good site going on the WP platform. What you see here is really just a $25 theme and a couple days of tweaking. There’s a pretty big opportunity out there for a developer to come up with an even simpler version of the WP back end that could be just as easy to use as something like iWeb. Not a tall order really, as from what playing with iWeb I’ve done, I don’t find it particularly easy at all. In some ways, these GUI tools like iWeb and Dreamweaver complicate things to such a degree that simply learning the tiny bit of HTML/CSS it takes to build these kinds of sites would almost be less work, even for the web novice. HTML ain’t that hard, folks.
Jay Leno’s a pretty interesting example. I can’t stand watching the guy on TV but have become a fan of him as a collector. He really knows his stuff and seems to have a deep appreciation for all types of vehicles (vintage and modern) for all the right reasons—unique designs, good engineering, the “soul” of the machine.
I see Leno driving pretty frequently and he’s in a different car every time. I have yet to be able to identify a single one of them on sight. He’s also purchased a truck (Chevy Corvair Rampside) as well as 2-wheelers from my dealer, who has quite a vehicle collection himself. What he does not have—that Leno does—is a full time staff to restore and maintain them. (We joked that Leno should buy Vectrix!)
I’d like to think that given the means, I’d be somewhere between Leno, the collector, and Ewan McGregor, who used his fortunes to ride around and up and down the world.
In my stable, I’d have a lot of what you have, including the Cub and the Elite (but I want one with a flip-up headlight). I have a whole laundry list of scooters and MCs in my head. I could easily fill a garage with dream vehicles under 350cc; really love the efficiency and beauty of small vehicles. I don’t know if a Honda CA 305 would get me around the world, but it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen (and it’s fairly affordable).
That said, I’d have to have a BMW R-series… R65 with a toaster tank, yup.
I agree with you, Eric. Once I discovered Jay’s gear-headed goodness, I quickly got the impression that what he does on TV is his shtick that pays for his lifestyle, but that the real Jay is a pretty cool guy with genuinely good taste. I remember specifically that he turned down an offer to be on the american version of BBC’s Top Gear precisely because he didn’t want to make his passionate hobby into his job. Smart move.