This weekend, Alpinestars hosted a “Motor Morning” at their US headquarters in Torrance, California. It’s something that they used to do fairly regularly, though this is just the second time it’s happened since COVID. This is the first time they’ve featured motorcycles in addition to cars, and they asked Iconic Motorbikes if we could bring a few to display. They’ve been so wonderful to us that it was the least we can do, so we brought some special bikes out of our inventory and woke up extra early on Saturday to visit the A* campus before heading back to work.
My partner Adam and I met up at our shop at 6:20am so we could get to the show right before it started and set up our canopy. I took my Tesi 3D, and Adam took a gorgeous Honda RC45 we have in inventory which is equipped with some sweet HRC parts (including an endurance fuel tank). One of our clients joined us, and we let him try our Bimota Tesi H2. My partner Adam captured a quick video before we took off:
We brought six bikes in a trailer, plus the three bikes that we rode out.
The bikes we brought were:
Honda NR750
Suzuki GSX-R750RK
Yamaha R7 OW-02
Ducati Diavel 1260 Lamborghini
Bimota Tesi 3D
Bimota Tesi H2
Honda RC45 Endurance Racebike (placed 5th at the 2000 24 Hours of Le Mans)
Honda RC45 street bike
Honda NSF250R
Here’s a quick slideshow of them (missing the NSF250R).
Here’s some of my favorite bikes that showed up:
This GPz900 has an awesome Moriwaki exhaust.
Even in the crazy world of customized Honda Ruckuses (Ruckii?), this one stands out.
Can’t say I’ve seen a samurai sword on a bike before.
Yoshimura’s Yamaha R7 that Ari Henning raced and then did a story about on RevZilla.
The dual-sided livery on the bike (and the helmet…and the suit) is fantastic.
Always fun to see other people appreciate the Tesi!
It’s rare to see a Yamaha Jog in the US – and even rare to see one that’s been customized. Look at the additional radiator and the strut to add rigidity! Plus the bodywork and engine cases had been drilled out to save weight.
My buddy Heath is the Director of Communications for Alpinestars, and one of his track bikes is a Yamaha R3 with a GG Retrofitz kit. The paint job was inspired by Wayne Rainey’s YZR500, and the “Mahalobrah” name comes from Heath’s partial Hawaiian ancestry. If you like the logo as much as I do, you can snag some stickers or hats on Heath’s Etsy store – I just bought a few stickers to put on my track bike and give away at the my shop.
Speaking of Heath, here he is interviewing my partner Adam for a quick video on Alpinestars’ social media channels.
And why not throw in a couple of bonus cars? Here’s a custom BMW E30 M3 with some gorgeous flared fenders.
The coolest car was probably the 1991 Footwork Arrows Formula 1 Porsche (3.5L V12 engine producing 680 horsepower!)
There was a small incline to get into the Alpinestars parking lot – but when it comes to a Formula 1 car, just about any incline is a problem. So they had to roll the bike in with the nose off and then install it later.
Another sweet four-wheeler was this Honda Acty “Kei Truck” with a Honda Monkey in the back!
Kei cars/trucks are a JDM-specific class of cars which are capped at 660cc engines – they are the smallest highway-legal passenger vehicles in Japan. It’s the kind of thing that I think I want for myself, but I really wouldn’t have a practical use for.
The aftermarket seats looked light…and quite uncomfortable.
Even better than cars? Dogs! This adorable guy is a Chihuahua/Corgi mix – the owner calls it a “chorgi”.
There was also a brindle Frenchie, but it was a little grumpy.
Alpinestars opened up the lobby so people could use the public bathrooms, which also meant you could check out some A* suits from some of their best riders/drivers.
Event over, we headed back to the shop.
I was feeling good about the auction site as of late as the last auction of the day prior (Friday) was a Ducati 916 that I think we may have set a record for (in terms of a base model). Not only that, but the seller let me know that he had another ’97 916 in similar condition and the second-highest bidder was willing to snap that up for basically the same price.
I’ve been experimenting with doing auctions on Saturdays as well, and I’ve been picking one special bike a week to feature on those days. We got back to the shop to catch the end of an auction for a Suzuki GSX-R750RK – the seller’s reserve was $23,000 but it ended up going for $35,650 plus our 7% buyer’s fee! This may also be a model-specific record (at least for a RK with miles).
If the Saturday auctions keep going like that, I’ll keep doing them! This week’s Saturday auction is for a Yamaha R7, and next week I’m going to feature a ~500 mile 2005 Honda CBR1000RR Repsol or a Yamaha FZ-09 that Roland Sands customized into “The Wasp” – Roland has tapped us to auction off a few of his bikes. We’ve already sold his Dyna Ripper and a cafe racer he created out of a Honda CR500. But check out the Wasp, it’s a beautiful custom:
If you’re near Torrance, stay tuned to Alpinestars as they plan on hosting “Motor Mornings” once a month…