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Makes me want to go barn hunting… A completely untouched, original condition circa 1903 Indian Camelback expected to fetch $60,000++ at Bonhams.

Be sure of what you REALLY have out in that shed… This is the sort of bike that might be casually tossed into the trash. And what a shame that would be. Up for sale in January. Se Here for what a proper restoration looks like.

PRIVATE DU PONT MUSEUM COLLECTION OF MOTORCYCLES COMES TO AUCTION

The 50-motorcycle strong family trove to be featured at Bonhams Las Vegas Sale in January.

San Francisco – Bonhams is extremely pleased to announce that it has been entrusted to represent what is regarded as one of the most important collections of motorcycles to come to market in years. From the prominent American family Du Pont, a name synonymous with a chemical empire, a luxury automobile manufacturer, and Indian motorcycle – America’s first motorcycle company, is a private museum collection three generations in the making.

Offered for the very first time, the collection of nearly 50 vintage motorcycles spanning 70 years of history contains many important and impressive machines, a good number of them Indian.

As an investor of the Indian Motocycle (sic) Company since 1923, Eleuthere Paul du Pont took over the ailing company in 1929 and helped usher in one of the most successful eras – financially, competitively, technologically and stylistically – in Indian’s history. As a result of this, the Du Pont family collection contains numerous Indian models – many of which were restored at Indian’s Springfield, Mass. factory – such as Camelback, Singles, Twins, Board Track Racer, Prince, Scout, Chief and Four, not to mention the following noteworthy individuals:

A completely untouched, original condition circa 1903 Indian Camelback
1908 Indian Camelback with an early restoration by the Indian factory
1908 Indian Twin restored by the factory and displayed at the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia
An extremely rare original paint 1909 Pope Single
Circa 1915 Indian Twin Board Track Racer acquired in the 1950s
What is believed to be the last Indian Chief supplied to a dealer

Additionally, some notable British motorcycles are included such as a 1951 Vincent Black Shadow with just 3,000-odd miles from new and a believed ex-Francis Beart 1959 Norton Manx, as well as numerous Triumph models. In all, the Du Pont family collection includes the following marques from America, Europe and Japan: BSA, Ducati, Gilera, Harley-Davidson, Honda, Indian, Merkel, Ner-A-Car, Norton, Peugeot, Pope, Scott, Simplex, Stephens, Suzuki, Triumph, Vincent and Yamaha.

The Du Pont Museum Collection will be offered at the second annual Bonhams Las Vegas Motorcycle Sale on January 12th, inside the famous Auto Collections museum at the Imperial Palace Hotel & Casino on The Strip.

And the hits keep coming from China… Another one from 444 design.

Things are picking up over there…

Hi,

I was fu…in proud when i found the pics of my silver Boxer-Bobber “El Diablo” on your homepage October 29th.

Pics and your comment were pretty cool.
“El Diablo” was my project No. 4
I gathered some pics of my 1st chinese custom bike “Black Widow”.
It is again a more “old scoolish” bike like “El Diablo” also. This bike was the very first which i customized and was finished in February 2009.
Following the philosophie: “A bikers work is never done” i added some more odd’s and end’s since then until i got to this final stage.
All overall i did the following modifications:
– frame sandblasted and rewelded
– Harley Footboards
– handmade handlebar
– imported frontlight
– FORD A taillight
– license plate moved to left
– custom turn indicators
– custom cockpit/gauges
– custom leather framebag
– custom exhaust
– imported carbs
– 16 inch rims
– tailor made spokes
– imported tyres
– handmade seat
– imported seatsprings
– handmade tailfender (was made out of a old plain fender with added sideskirts)
“Black Widow” ain’t one of those “Show and Shiny” rides but my daily driver which i use to get to the office almost each day.
She runs with a standard chinese 24hp Boxer Engine which is pretty reliable and already has several thousand kilometers on the clock.
With this bike i built up the first Chang in whole China running on 16inch rims which – in my opinion – gives better handling as well as a much better look than with those 19″ wheels usually used on the bikes.
Meanwhile i work on project No. 07 and No. 08.

If you are interested i will keep you updated.
Greetz from China!

PS…

Maybe you can mention my facebook account somewhere – actually i’m too stupid to set up a link.
My facebook alias is “Thomas Chang Jiang”
Thomas
http://www.4444-Chang-Jiang-Design.com

Thanks and heck Yeah I’m interested. Keep em coming!

A Honda Bomber on the Dragon.

My buddy Ric riding the heck out of his freshly re-minted Honda at Deals Gap. Even nicer in person. Ric AND the Bomber lol..

What if Triumph Built A Liter Sized Sportbike.

BIG hat tip to Asphalt And Rubber who broke this.! Well these folks at Enigma simply could not wait. Fantastic Stuff! I have no idea why Triumph won’t just build it themselves…

One hell of a KTM commercial…

some of the scenery in the last minute of this video is just jaw dropping. Oh and I like the bike a lot too.

ktm

And that last post was #2000…

Not sure why but when I started it was just sort of a goof and an offshoot of the 2 stroke biker blog for all the cool non-2-stroke stuff I was finding and I never really intended it to become quite the force it did…. much less last for 2000 plus posts… Cool. And for “gits and shiggles” I checked the counter and we’re rapidly approaching 870,000 page views! well Damm..

Sweet 66 Triumph Desert Sled…

For the full build thread check out http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=662879

All origina low mileage Suzuki T500. The kind of barn find I dream about.

Regular contributor to my 2 stroke blog Ted Guthrie sent in his latest “barn find”.

Hi, Steve. Thought I’d share with you the great barn find I brought home recently. It’s a 1973 Suzuki T500 Titan, with 4,000 original miles on it. Although far from perfect cosmetically due to plain old aging, it is in amazing condition. All I did to get it look as it does in these pictures was to wash it. Torn fork gaitors show, as well as a broken lock on the gas cap – hence my baggie/rubber band seal. Tape on the tank is my label reminding me there is no fuel in it. Haven’t tried to fire it up yet, as I intend to go through the carbs and ignition first. Dig the condition of the seat and tires. They’re exactly as when I got the bike. No Armorall on ’em or anything. Nearly 40 years old. Amazing. What a survivor. Ted Guthrie PS: Please see also, pic of parts and pieces of ’75 Bultaco 350 Alpina I am putting together. 1960 Triumph Tiger Cub is next in line, too.

Hot…. Freaking…. Damm…. Royal Enfield Prototype Flat/Street tracker…

So there I was perusing one of the many message board threads that I check in on regularly when I tripped across this AMAZINGLY COOL photo of a Royal Enfield flat track conversion that had  been rather casually slipped in to to a “Flat Tracker” thread.  My eyes quite literally bugged out of my head.   I’m not embarrassed to say that I’m a wee bit smitten with this build.

Well, long story short I inquired about the bike and was hooked up with Art Guilfoil who is a part owner of Doug Douglas Motorcycles in San Bernardino, CA.  He’s been working on the prototype.  And  I mean hot freaking damm… how nice is this!

After getting in touch, Art was kind enough to provide the background info on this really trick build.

Hi Steve

The bike you’re talking about is our prototype for a streettracker that we are making parts for. This is something that’s been in the works for about a year off and on and we just got it all together the other day so we could bring it to the IMS show. It has yet to turn a wheel at the track so I don’t have much to say about riding it…yet.

We plan to be up and running building street legal bikes (ed: YES!!) with the parts we are developing within a few months. We still have a lot to do in developing this as a racer but that will progress throughout the year as we develop performance items and test chassis issues not to mention the new parts we are creating.

So, to give you a rundown on what we have so far: New swingarm that is stronger and slightly longer than stock. It uses a disk brake as opposed to the stock drum brake and that’s a major upgrade to begin with. The forks are 43mm R6 modified for flattrack and they are in adjustable triple clamps that have been annodized black and this particular set is engraved “Royal Enfield”. We built the seat loop to use a Champion 250 style seat base and Saddlemen made us the seat. We have relocated the electrics including the battery for looks as well as to protect those pieces. The stainless steel exhaust is a race only unit that’s really loud.

For all of these parts we have some development that will continue before we are willing to offer them to the public but it will come soon enough. The idea is two fold…we do want to race this bike and hopefully it gets a following in amateur racing (ed this seems like a natural!) since there’s not many modern bikes besides dirtbikes that are used for flattrack any longer. So this is that alternative for the guy who wants a proper looking bike and yet wants electric start and reliability. The second part is as a street tracker that allows someone to have a bad-ass conversation piece with a warrantew and can be financed and depending on ow he options it up the price would be 10k to 15k. That’s about half what other builders are getting for their street trackers that are based on old bikes that can’t even be financed let alone have modern comforts such as the e start buttona nd fuel injection.

We think we have a winner on and off the track. For now, we’re just enjoying the build. 90% of the project at this point is personal satisfaction.

I’ve included a couple more photos we took just before it went to the show. Not the greatest shots but it’s all I have right now.

Thanks for the email. If you want mroe info let me know.

Take care
Art

“90% of the project at this point is personal satisfaction.” That is the cornerstone to most great success stories.