Roar material
Fresh off the boat from the USA, to Lincolnshire. Buying a bike the modern way…
NO ONE EVER SAID buying a bike blind would be easy. Having said that, the One Million Years BC muriel was impossible to miss. But transatlantic ebay buys mean flying with restricted vision. And when there are large sums of money involved, it’s a sometimes fraught process. I studied the photographs as hard as possible, and reckoned that aside from the badly airbrushed girl and her pet sabre-tooth tiger (and the pullback risers), it was bog stock, condition commensurate with its 35 years on earth, and good value. An offer was made and accepted (£3200), a deposit put down – and the fun began… The vendor Grafton Griswald, out of Maryland, USA, proved to be one ornery critter. He did not want to use Paypal: ‘I ain’t paying three hundred bucks tax to no one.’ Nor did he wish to give out his bank details for a transfer. ‘You get me a cashier’s cheque to the Lion Food Store.’ I wasn’t happy with that. ‘You trying to get out of paying for this motorcycle?’ No. ‘You pay for this bike and quit putting me through a whole lot of changes or I’ll send you your deposit back.’ On the verge of losing the will to prosecute the deal, we both settled on splitting the tax bill and going through Paypal. Now there was the shipping to cope with: ‘You want to contact your stupid shipping company. I waited in all weekend and they never showed.’ Then the US arm of the shippers requested he leave the bike outside his gaff with the title and bill of sale in one of the saddlebags. He wasn’t having any of that. Mark Cowley, boss of the excellent Kingstown Shipping Company in Hull saw his point. ‘He’s damn right about that,’ he said. And so it went on. Mark, who’s brought in more than a few items from places far and wide was moved to say; ‘Bloody hell, this is hard work isn’t it?’ And Grafton no doubt thought the same. A month later the FXWG docked at Felixstowe. Equipped with a UCN (Unique Collection Number) me and Trailmaster turned up at the docks. The muriel was even worse then we imagined, Raquel Welch’s eyes were somewhere up near her hairline. Even allowing for some Neanderthal licence in the work, that’s not great. But for £4100 shipped, that IS great.