« F650 Battery | Main | Spares Received »
This week, a mint condition 851 Tricolore came up for sale on eBay. The early 851's were made for two years only, 1988 and 1989. They were quite the imited-edition motorcycle, with only several hundred being sold. They were tremendously expensive (in the neighborhood of 20 grand at Munroe Motors in San Francisco, if I recall correctly). The bikes had Marvic two-piece wheels, full-floating front disk brakes, and were just about the most exotic thing one could buy for the street.
By 1990, Ducati had figured out that demand was strong for these bikes, and that an economy of scale could allow them to mass-produce the motorcycles at a greatly reduced cost. Consequently, by 1990, the price of an 851 had dropped by approximately half. Moreover, the quality of the motorcycle had improved considerably. Owning a piece of exotica often means putting up with "bleeding edge" technology.
One of the regular listers on the 851-888 List shared that he recalled that the Tricolore F1 (like the one on its way to me from Oregon) was what first attracted him to Ducati's, and that some day he will own a Tricolore 851. Another regular lister recalled that when he test rode a Tricolore he was surprised by the machine's "rawness" in comparison to his 1990 851.
So what makes us middle-aged folks (men for the most part) buy these old motorcycles? Clearly, a combination of factors is at work: the desire to obtain something that was once unattainable, the riding of a motorcycle about which one has dreamed, proof to ourselves that dreams do not die and that we are capable of making them come true.
But how do we evaluate the bike of our dreams? Is it worth it to purchase a motorcycle with 16 inch wheels for which finding appropriate tires will always be a challenge in order to have the very bike we saw at Munroe Motors in 1988? Is rarer always better? A tricolore will hold its value much more so than a later 851 or 888, but how much riding will one do on such a treasure? To what extent does a motorcycle's existence as a "garage queen" diminish its relationship to the rider? If the bike is merely trailered from place to place (some folks are known to disconnect the speedo when loading the bike in order to preserve the lowest possible mileage), then the rider-motorcycle relationship becomes merely an owner-motorcycle relationship. On the other hand, what is the point of compromising on one's dream bike?
For me in my present current financial state, I cannot afford a $20,000 piece of decorative art. Each of my bikes provides me a visceral experience that I simply can't quantify. And I think that for now at least, that visceral experience includes firing it up and taking out in to the real world every once in a while.
Posted by Underblog at November 18, 2008 8:29 AM
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blog.mayoreric.com/blog/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/2146