"Drop of a hat 2004" Part 5
So, it’s
Wednesday 10th November and I am heading of for the final U.S. trip
of the year, the plan is to fly out of Birmingham to New York and then down to
Tampa for a connecting flight early a.m. tomorrow back up North to Flint in
Michigan, after a chilly Britain the warm 75 degrees of Tampa is a welcome
change.
The stay
over was all too brief as 8 hours later I am up 5am to fly up to a wet and cool
Atlanta for the connecting flight to Flint, Leaving the airport in Flint brings
back the reality of Michigan in winter – it is 30 degrees an snow is on the
cards! My hire car for this leg is a Dodge Ram pick up truck, the “Ram” is a
nice big pick up truck, it’s rated at ¾ of a Ton and yet my Mitsubishi “Warrior”
pick up back in the U.K. is rated at 1 Ton and would fit on the back of the Ram!
– The Ram is huge, there is plenty of room for Two bikes on the back and it’s
bigger than the average family car in the cab! At 14 miles to the U.S. Gallon @
80 mph the fuel consumption isn’t too outrageous. I find my first destination in
Flint and collect a H2b bought off Ebay. It had been owned for owned for 10
years by Bob, there was a BIG problem my paypal payment hadn’t gone through, so
had to do it there and then, the joys of a dial up connection were brought home
to me with a bang!
After
loading up the truck at 6pm and it was time for the 280 mile drive up to
Interlochen to drop the bike off at “Gary K’s”, arriving there at 10pm in the
freezing cold was a shock and after unloading the bike I get to bed at midnight,
quite a typical 19 hour day!
The “Ram”
was left in town (a one way hire is an extra $50.00) and I collected my poor
little GMC Sonoma – quite a cramped little truck after the enormous Ram. Then it
is on down to Chicago and then South to check out a couple of leads from an
earlier trip, namely, Quincy and Hamburg in Illinois where a couple of ex
Kawasaki dealers were liquidating old stock. From there it would be on to
another small town where I discovered Two H2’s in a barn. It’s a 600 mile trip
so I am looking at another long day.
A couple of
hundred miles into the trip and after checking fuel consumption my little pick
up is only averaging 12 miles to the gallon with my trailer on, compared to my
usual 16 miles to the gallon without the trailer. With petrol now at a massive
$2.00 a gallon (£1.04) compared to $1.10 five years ago even I am bitching at
the cost of gas!
I make it
down to look at the Two H2’s that I had found in a barn. When I first discovered
the bikes we were looking at a ball park figure of $400 - 500 each, the vendor,
“Ed”, had a friend who had the Internet and he proceeded to enlighten me about Ebay L
The previous week Ed had heard that a “fixer upper” had sold for over $5,000 and
he went on to tell me how some of them now sell for $15,000+ ! Consequently Ed had
no intention of letting these jewels go for $500 a piece. As he put it “they ain’t eating any corn just sitting there, they’ve been there 20 years and can
sit there 20 more” . and these “jewels”?
The “barn
fresh” H2, the rear wheel was removed to fix a puncture in 1976!
The H2b was
parked in 1977 when the engine locked up.
No wonder Ed is grinning like
the cat that got the cream - even with his vastly inflated prices the bikes are
just about worth doing ? I do some maths and work out that they will arrive in
Nottingham with a total cost of around £1,600 each.
From Ed's it is on to the
dealership that has $160,000 worth of stock for sale - I am offered it for
$60,000 but after going through a few boxes there are a lot of pistons, also
lots of traily bike and Z400 parts - for instance part of the "160k" is a Z400
cam chain bracket that retails at $180 and would be worth $10 on Ebay. The
dealer had already sold most of the good stuff on Ebay and was now trying to
shift the dross. I can't see any way forward to doing a deal but I DO part
with a substantial chunk of cash for 3 items of memorabillia :
A genuine Tristars
commemorative mug
A commemorative H1 ashtray
And a stopwatch, released to
dealers selling the Kawasaki "Greenstreak" (Motorcross bikes)
There was an abundance of used
spares that were on offer as well, but realistically I already had the same
stock back in the U.K. Twice over! A couple of early bridge port engines took my
fancy and we did manage to do a deal on them, as to the NOS? I was finally
offered them
for $30,000 but with 90%+ being obsolete and unwanted parts I had no option but
to turn it down.
The next leg of the trip was
down to another dealer who had just $23,000 worth of 1970's stock (80% junk)
which seemed to be worth a look, I was told that the retail price was just to
give them an idea of what stock they had and I would be offered a "considerable
discount" . . . which turned out to be $3,000 off retail. "Some of this
stuff sells for more than retail on Ebay" I was told . . . . . And yet the
majority sells for a fraction of retail - why do you only hear about the high
prices on Ebay when someone is trying to sell you something? Another 150 miles
wasted as I leave without even looking at the stock.
Sunday
morning and it is sunny and cold for my 500 mile drive up to Minnesota, I
am collecting the Z1000 in Iowa which looks very nice in the photos, it is low
mileage with a brand new exhaust system that was taken off when the bike
was new and replaced with a "Kawasaki Kerker" 4 into 1. The bike was supposed to
be a dealer special, time is rapidly running out as I collect the bike and load
it onto the trailer without a close examination. As I head up North to Minneapolis
I wonder why if the exhaust is new, then why is it bronze and blue in places,
and why is there a pingle fuel tap and a K&N, I would be willing to place money
that the bike was not a "Dealer Special" but more likely a standard Z1000A1 that
has had a K&N fitted and THAT is why the pipe is bronze & blue, it was then
fitted with a Kerker etc The bike has obviously been lightly
restored as well, at $4,000 it will stand me at nearly £3,000 if it comes back
to the U.K.
So, another 500 mile day draws to a close and strangely, even with 3 bikes and a few engines aboard
the little Sonoma is still getting 12 mpg @ 70 mph. As I find a motel for the
night I suddenly realise that I havn’t eaten for fifteen hours! I nip to the
local Grill & Bar to find that they are still serving food but I am just One of
4 customers in there late on Sunday night, apparently there is a bit of a football match on so the bars are all
empty. The burger does the job and I get talking to the guy next to me - who
also owns the bar! I am shocked
to se Cider in the fridge, out of all the bars I have visited in the U.S. I can
count on One hand the number of bars that keep cider in. My new buddy is keen to
impress and opens a bottle of Cider, followed by a bottle of speckled hen,
followed by another amber beer ALL on the house! It turned out that he owned the
bar, If I wasn't so darn tired I would have sampled a few more beers!
Early
morning and I am heading up to see Cody Stone (Scrambler 73) who has done me yet
another favour and collected a H2 from Wisconsin, the bike is FAR better than I
thought and it was actually an Ebay bargain! I'd also bought a H2c project off
Cody so with my Two bikes on the truck and three in the trailer I set off for
another "Ex" dealer on the Michigan / Minnesota border.
"Marvin" was
an Ex dealer that I stumbled across earlier this
year, I had vowed to call by on my next trip – yet again it was the old scenario,
“Marve” had been checking out current prices since my last visit and a set of H2
cylinders that would have been $100 on my last visit has suddenly leapt to
$500+ These are USED cylinders – obviously off an accident job as there are a
lot of broken fins. We persevere and I manage to buy up some NOS triple tanks
and pipes and along with a wreck of a KV75 it was worth stopping by.
The last leg of this 3,000 mile
rip was fairly uneventful other than to report that my pal Gary K had found me a
junk H2 and after 18,000 miles driven in the U.S. this year I am happy to report
that my little sonoma with 2 bikes on the back and four bikes in the trailer is
still purring along . . .
From Gary's house in Michigan
it was back down to Tampa for the flight out to Birmingham, With a day to spare
I have a drive around and check out Truck prices, after recently buying myself a
L200 Mitsubishi I am shocked to find that a similar truck is HALF the price in
the U.S. and a Hyundai Sonata can be bought (with 100,000 mile warranty not the
U.K. 50,000 mile warranty) for almost a third of the price of the comparable
U.K. version! With hours to go before I leave Tampa and find a guy with 20
H1 & H2's for sale . . . . Watch this space :)
I had never seen a bike before
that was fitted with "training wheels" a VERY old guy riding this Goldwing was
grateful for them
The guy riding this Goldwing
"jet" HAD to use them!
More in 2005!
Rick Brett
The H2 in the pictures just above was bought in August 2005
as a restoration project by Jerry North in England, he completed the restoration
almost a year later but the pile of junk above has turned out to be one of the
nicest 1972 H2's in Britain :
