A while back, a good friend and I had a stupid and futile conversation on car and motorcycle values and investing. As a motorcycling accountant, I find this topic fascinating. As a guy in the classic auto industry, he dealt with this every day. We spent a lot of time looking at cars that had risen quickly in value (Hagerty.com is a great place to do that), and the thing they all seemed to have in common were they were great cars that never got their due with the public. It’s a fun conversation to have with a friend over a beer, especially when you realize that’s the basic premise of Value Investing.
The other thing we noticed was that when one car goes up wildly in value, it seems to bring the values of similar cars with the same lineage up too. This isn’t specific to any bike really, but with the number of bikes Abhi features here and considering how many of you have multiple bikes, I’d love to hear if you’ve ever noticed any trends in the motorcycle market. Of course, it isn’t my hope to get rich buying and selling motorcycles. I just find this topic interesting. And of course, I hope to feature motorcycles that offer a value to the buyer.
Why did I write the above paragraph? With some creamsicle R90S’ now been advertised for over $30,000, it begs the question, what is a clean, original R100RS worth? Not as much as you’d think considering the MSRP was $4,800 new. To me, the R100RS has always been an acquired taste. When you consider this one still makes a great sport-tourer regardless of it’s age, it actually makes more sense than a R90S. This fairing obviously provides more protection, and has always been praised as one of the best to come out of the 70’s although some criticized the windscreen for being a little short. These bikes are similar mechanically to the R90S but have Bing carburetors and slightly larger engines making 70 horsepower. They still have dual discs up front like the R90S and the later years had a disc in the back. That’s good news because this bike was regarded as the Autobahn barnstormer of it’s day. This particular one was one of the limited edition Motorsport models. Those had special emblems, red paint around the headlight, and the coolest pin stripes to ever leave Berlin.
Maybe the best feature is just how clean the current owner has managed to keep this bike, which sounds to also be in great condition mechanically. This is a one of the nicer Motorsports Edition that I’ve seen, and if the seller’s description is accurate it’s still original. To put this in perspective, they usually look like this, or restored they sell for $6,500. The bike the seller references in his ad actually had more miles and didn’t look as fresh. Bob’s has a similar bike, but they disclose it has issues and won’t go into what those are. Something else to consider is that other R100RS’ were often copied to look like Motorsports Edition bikes. If the VIN is accurate, this is a verifiable RS Motorsports. All in all, this seems like a great motorcycle and one that you can still use as a sport tourer if you so choose thanks to the Krausers.
This bike is available in Phoenix, Arizona for $10,125 here on Panjo.