AT LUNCH WITH...
As a lover of historic vehicles, Ben has his dream job as head of Bonhams motorcycle department – with all the barn finds and detective work into authenticity that it entails
Ben Walker, the Indiana Jones of Bonhams, tells us barn-find tales
You push open a dilapidated barn door and as your eyes become accustomed to the gloom you see familiar shapes under blankets of dust, picked out by shafts of light from holes in the roof. There are Vincents, Broughs and Manx Nortons all waiting to be lovingly restored... and then you wake up. It’s a familiar dream for most of us, but for Ben Walker it’s been part of his life for the last 18 years. As the international head of Bonhams motorcycle department, he’s responsible not just for putting on the auctions, but sourcing the bikes, too.
“That kind of ‘dream find’ happens quite often,” says Ben as we wait for our starters at his local boozer in south London. “The bikes are still out there to be found, because it’s so easy to have a motorcycle tucked in your shed which can languish there for years before it’s discovered.
“That’s the exciting bit of my job – you’ve no idea what you’re going to find when you open that garage door or look in that shed. And if you do have an idea of what might be inside, it’s great when your expectations get surpassed. And that often happens.”
His most extraordinary find happened in 2015, when he and his team discovered the legendary Broughs of Bodmin, a collection of eight bikes that Bonhams eventually sold for £752,625. “Like everyone else at the time, we weren’t quite sure if the collection was an urban myth or not – and we certainly didn’t know where the bikes were. Then we got a phone call from a Brough enthusiast, letting us know that the owner had moved house to live with his nephew.
“All we knew was the village where the bikes were supposed to be, so a colleague and I went onto Googlemaps Streetview and went up and down every road looking for clues. We’d never done anything like it before. We were looking for the sort of place that was most likely to house a collection of dilapidated motorcycles – and we found it. I could actually see a Brough car, and bits of a bike on Streetview.
“We don’t cold-call people, but in this instance we made an exception and the head of our Cornish division, Jonathan Vickers, got in his car and went and looked. He couldn’t see inside the shed, but it was definitely the place. There was no one home, but a neighbour came out and asked him what he was doing, so he introduced himself and the neighbour said he’d give the owner’s nephew Jonathan’s card.
“Two days later, the nephew called Jonathan and told him the intention was to clear the site, including the bikes. They were actually going to pay someone to get rid of
them! Jonathan asked if he could have a look, was allowed in and it became clear what was in there.”
Inside the shed was a 1938 Brough Superior 750cc BS4 (one of only 10 of the four-cylinder, twin-rear-wheel motorcycles ever made), two Brough Superior SS100S, four SS80S and a side-valve 11-50hp JAP model. Some were partly dismantled, others were rusting away and covered in household clutter.
“We presented the family with a six-figure valuation and they thought we were completely nuts,” says Ben. “They were looking at piles of rust and saying: ‘You mean that bike could be worth £20,000?’ They just didn’t believe it. On the day, the whole family came to the auction – but unfortunately the owner, Frank Vague, passed away about a month before. That was a real shame.”
At the auction, the bikes obliterated their estimates. “We ended up giving the family a cheque for over £600,000. The lovely thing was that it was distributed between the great nephews and nieces, who ranged in age from a few months old up to about 21 years.”
Of course it’s rare that Ben has to actively seek collections, because most sellers get in touch with him rather than the other way round. But that still leads to some extraordinary discoveries, as he reveals: “I got a phone call from America once from a lady with a strong New York accent, saying she had her great grandfather’s motorcycle. She then said that it ran on steam, and warned me that it had been in the basement for 60 years and it was very rusty. My excitement was growing, and I asked her to send me a picture. The email arrived and I could hardly contain myself – it was an 1894 Hildebrand and Wolfmüller – an example of the first ever production motorcycle. She had no idea what it was.”
Ben’s appetite for this kind of historic automotive discovery made itself apparent from an early age. “As a kid, when we went on caravan holidays I’d always end up peering into barns or crawling over the old Rovers and Austins rusting away in farmyards. Even on school field trips I’d take pictures of old cars and bikes that I’d spot tucked away.
“My dad was a motorcyclist and on those occasions that I’d accompany him to his bank, I used to press my nose up against the window of Verralls [the specialist classic dealer] on Tooting High Street [London]. Years later Brian [Verrall], who was one of the grandfathers of classic motorcycle trading, became a friend and when he passed away I sold his amazing collection of motorcycles and ephemera.” Those bikes fetched £1,236,400.
“I’ve always been interested in the old stuff. I can’t really explain it. History has always been my thing and to be able to understand the value of these machines you’ve got to be able to put them into context. That’s why I don’t discriminate – one of the most important motorcycles ever built in my opinion is the Honda step-thru. Any of those post-war commuters – Bantams, DKWS etc – are important motorcycles. When I go to see collections, alongside the Brough Superior or the Vincent there’s often a Bantam or a C15. I don’t even need to ask the question, I know why that bike is there – it was their first motorcycle. It’s like my first motorcycle – a CB125S that I still own. It’s nostalgia.” You get the feeling Ben fully understands the collector mindset because fundamentally it’s the same as his own. “I’ve only ever sold one of my machines – a T160 Trident, to fund the nursery when our first-born arrived. I’ve kept all the others [three BMWS, a BSA Gold Star, a Norton
‘THEY WERE LOOKING AT PILES OF RUST AND SAYING: ‘YOU MEAN THAT BIKE COULD BE WORTH £20,000?’ THEY JUST DIDN’T BELIEVE IT’
Dominator, a Bonneville T120R, an Ariel Red Hunter, a Parilla and that CB125S. It’s a problem I have.”
The move into auctions seemed a logical step for the teenage Walker. “I thought: ‘How am I going to experience the vehicles I covet without being in a position to afford them?’ When I was 15 I wrote to Sotheby’s, Brooks [which later became Bonhams] and Christie’s, asking for work experience.” Only Brooks gave Ben a chance, but it was all he needed – he was in. After doing a degree in Fine Art Valuation (working the summers at Brooks, of course) he started in the automobilia department in 2000 and then took over the motorcycle department in 2002, where he’s been ever since.
“Bikes were a bit of an afterthought in those days,” he says as we demolish plates of fish and chips. “The trouble was that motorcycles were seen as the poor cousins of cars, even though so many of the great car people started their careers on bikes – Nuvolari, Ascari, WO Bentley, Damon Hill, to name but a few. There’s still an assumption that you’re going to be a bearded, long-haired, leather-jacketed troublemaker, which is of course utter nonsense. We come from all walks of life and backgrounds.
“No one was looking at bikes academically back then. People tended to accept that a bike was what the seller said it was, which is why there are more ‘Gold Stars’ in existence now than were ever made. There have been people out there pulling the wool over the eyes of collectors and enthusiasts for decades. We are starting to see machines that were purchased in the 1980s and ’90s coming onto the market and unfortunately quite a few are just not right.” Ben turns away one bike for every ten that Bonhams take on to sell because there are doubts about its heritage. “When you see a bike come up at auction with one family ownership from new, in entirely original condition with factory paint and factory numbers with a till receipt from when the grandfather purchased it, there can be no arguments. Those bikes will be worth a significant premium.” These days Ben reckons buyers are far more wary of buying a bike that isn’t what it seems, compared to when he first started out 20 years ago. “The first Stafford [Show auction] I did, there was no one checking the bikes or the frame and engine numbers, and I even saw a vendor’s lorry turn up with bikes that had fallen over in the back. I was shocked – no one seemed to care. The standards are much, much higher now – for example, we carry out a frame and engine number check on every machine we offer for sale. The people buying motorcycles today are far more discerning, too – not just in terms of what machine they want, but also its condition and the quality of the restoration.”
There are also huge changes in market demographics at the moment according to Ben, as older collectors pass away. “What was acceptable to them as a restoration isn’t necessarily acceptable to the new generation. Hand painting of frames, making something fit... Heath Robinson experiments can have their charm, but aren’t necessarily tolerated these days.
“Also, there’s more wealth in the marketplace now. It is not uncommon for us to sell an exceptional motorcycle for over £200,000 these days, but if I sold a bike for over £20,000 at my first sale it would have been amazing. There’s rarely a sale now where there isn’t a motorcycle selling for a six-figure sum.”
Besides being willing to spend more money, today’s buyers are far better informed about the details of bikes, thanks
partly to more organised owners’ clubs. “And there are some excellent internet forums. I like the anoraks. Their knowledge is fantastic – and I guarantee that if I don’t know something, I know someone who does.”
But what about those grey areas where multiple major components are replaced and you end up with a ‘Trigger’s broom’ of a bike? “Of course, sometimes bikes are crashed or they blow up and engines or frames get replaced and identities are transferred legitimately. I sold Carl Fogarty’s Nw200-winning 888 which didn’t have the original frame. I rang up the team manager and he confirmed it had been crashed heavily in practice and the bike subsequently rebuilt around a new factory frame re-stamped with the original number. That is completely legitimate.”
When the facts don’t add up, though, Ben dons his detective hat – a piece of headgear he clearly relishes wearing. You get the feeling he’d happily spend all day digging through history files to unearth new information rather than booking auction halls and administering hundreds of sales.
“It’s really exciting when I can uncover information and prove whether a bike is legitimate or not. We had a 1973 Seeley Suzuki Tr500-engined bike that the owner thought was Barry Sheene’s. Now it couldn’t have been Barry’s because I knew where that one was, but it was definitely a works engine. He’d bought it from Stan Woods’ sponsor, so that was a clue. I spoke to Eva Seeley [the late Colin Seeley’s wife] and she confirmed from the factory records that it was supplied to Suzuki GB for Stanley Woods, and that it was two frame numbers after the Sheene bike. That meant it was Stan’s bike in the 1973 season, when he was riding alongside Barry. That bike had remained hidden for the best part of 30 years.
“Then there was a bike that was supposed to be Clive Horton’s 1974 Tt-winning Machin-yamaha. Via his sons I got hold of Clive and he looked at the pictures and said it definitely wasn’t his TT winner. In the end, it turned out to be a sister bike built by Jack Machin for club racer Dave Saltwell. I love finding out that kind of thing.”
Ben’s rampant enthusiasm for bikes, history and fellow motorcycle addicts mark him out as a man who’s found his perfect niche in life. But surely there must be a downside to his job? “There’s often a lot of emotion involved in a sale, especially when it’s a deceased estate, because the sellers – a wife or child of the late owner – know how important
that bike was to their relative. It can be very sad to see. I’ve had people in tears as the bikes are loaded into the backs of trucks, because even though they knew little or nothing about bikes themselves, they were tangible reminders of their relative and now all they have are spaces in the garage.
“I’ve also had situations when someone has lived in squalor and yet they’ve had hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of motorcycles in the garage. They could have sold them and with the proceeds spent their twilight years in comfort. That’s sad to see – but I do understand the attachment and why someone may choose a certain way of life over selling their precious motorcycles. Plus, of course, last year we had some bikes sold for financial reasons because of Covid, which was very sad. There’s no pleasure to be had from that.” Though selling some deceased estates tugs at Ben’s heartstrings, it’s clear that most are more heart-warming than upsetting, with tales of eccentric owners, fantastic bikes and lives lived to the full. “We had a Manx Norton in the last sale that the wife had never even seen,” says Ben, to prove his point. “He’d bought it 35 years ago, but she’d never paid attention to what he had in the garage – there were five Vincents in there! The front wheel of the Black Shadow had literally sunk into the rotten wood floor of the shed because it had been stood for so long. And she had little or no knowledge of what they were – he’d kept very, very quiet about the whole thing.”
As we finish our coffees, I realise we haven’t talked about the future of the classic market, and therefore his job. Will he still be selling old motorcycles in 10 or 20 years time? “I think so. There will be more people selling post-war British bikes in the next few years as the baby boomer generation pass away – and prices will perhaps level out – but give it another generation and it will all come up again. It’s cyclical. Youngsters today will be raised on electric cars, but some will find out about our generation’s cars and bikes and say: ‘You mean it runs by setting petrol on fire and it makes a noise!?’ and they’ll be excited. I think there is a future.”
Another reason for that optimism is that, whereas bikes like Ducati 916s and Honda RC30S are now bought by people who wanted one back in the day but couldn’t afford it, lots of older bikes are popular purely because of their engineering. “We had a 1928 Model 90 Sunbeam [see page 116 for Bonhams Winter Sale review, including details of the Model 90 sale] in the last sale that sold for £41,000 and there were six or seven people bidding. There’s no one alive who could be nostalgic about that bike. The bidders were all in their 50s and 60s – they’re looking at the engineering and recognising that it was a quality motorcycle. A beautiful machine. The interest levels for that type of bike are high, but not from a generation who are reminiscing about it.
“That kind of interest in superb motorcycles will sustain the market for decades to come.”
‘INTEREST IN SUPERB BIKES WILL SUSTAIN THE MARKET FOR DECADES TO COME’