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Edited Date/Time
7/6/2018 6:16am
Iv'e heard old factory bikes are stripped of their parts and they are destroyed or kept which I can believe since they are so special but I was wondering if some race teams actually sells their bikes after the season is over rather than ruining them and if so where they are marketed.
The parts that weren't one off got used by team members or friends of the team. But thats just seats and stuff. You want to know what happened to the Trick stuff. All gone.
The Shop
No vin on this frame and no choke on the carb it's sand cast. The deal with the no vin isn't such a big deal as everyone thinks. If you order a frame from the manufacturer it's not gonna come with a vin. A lot of the vin numbers got reassigned to the next frame in which usually got swapped out every 4 races. The key to the frame is if it has all the gussets and welds. Now back before the production rule those frames were one from hand made frames. Most of the stuff 20 years old to us now days were stock frames but tug welded, gusseted and tabes all welded in.
Loads upon loads of works bike and parts from the real days of works bikes scattered all across Europe. Many complete race bikes and many pieced together from spares that were to be discarded throughout the season. One guy in Holland has a collection of works Yamaha's that will make your head spin.
Here in the states they pop up for sale from time to time. Some were given to riders as practice bikes and never asked to be returned since they were just "practice bikes". Some had their engines gutted and given as trophies for winning championships. Some were sent out to have mods done and abandoned when a new run of bikes showed up for the team. Some ended up in salvage yards in SoCal where they were found many years later and restored.
Used to be they crushed them after the seasons end so nobody saw the secrets.
But like Newman said, stuff gets lost. And found.
There's a few good stories on that guy, what's his name, Terry's website. How he found and how his works bike collection came about.
A top dealer gets a Championship bike for a promotion, they forget to take it back.
The guy tasked with taking the bikes to the crusher stops by the mini storage place and drops a bike or 2 off, for retirement money later on.
I heard Harly Davidson made 1000 of those orange motocrossers back in the day, and crushed 500 of them for the tax write off when they didn't sell.
But nowadays, seems to me the stock stuff, especially the KTMs, are close enough that it's possible to to get a stock bike real close to what a factory team is running.
And when a team actually does sell a few off, they're stripped of all the good stuff, and are basically clapped out beaters.
Pit Row
1987 Cagiva 250 - Pekka Vehkonen
1986 Kawasaki SR500 - Georges Jobe Read more...
But, there have been a few - the strange thing is, when they were used, not much was made of them / 'fans' often just didn't know they were anything special.
But, that might come down to the general ignorance of spectators and magazines / journalists. Graeme Smythe, a Western Australian rider had a few Yamaha's and perhaps a Kawi or two - for some reason I associate him with a 70s Works Kawi - the one with the white tubular plastic upper fork protectors that made the forks look like USDs ( for a description that young people can relate to).
Steve Gall had a Works Bike (or two) for a short time,
. Anthony Gunter had Works Suzuki's a few times. Mike Landman, I think had Works Yamaha's a few times, Trevor Williams had use of some SR Kawis over the years.
Plenty of trick parts / semi works kit at times. Rinaldi kit stuff as an example. You'd see kit parts on Leisk:s and other Hondas. I'm sure plenty of SXS level KTM bikes and bits have arrived, and on and on and on.
My Dad and Uncle would get special Bultaco (the Floods had a quite a relationship with Bultaco and then KTM) and Montesa bits and bikes and also bought a few BSAs and then CCMs used by international riders after they,'d been here, as quite a few other people did. Hell, you could buy RH Suzukis ( they weren't the same as bikes in GPs, but they sure as hell weren't standard TMs) on special order in the 70s, much like how you could order TZs and Honda Road Racers from distributors. And, you could get things like HRC engine kits / parts under the same sort of programming, World wide. Never saw much made of things like that in US mags, but I guess that may be down to the aftermarket dominance of companies like PC and FMF.
But no, we aren't awash with Works Bikes.
Im fuzzy on the details can someone correct me on this?
I bet plenty of amazing bikes are still out and about hidden or forgotten about from riders and mechanics
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