‘Bikes such as Yamaha’s XT500 and TT500 are appreciating rapidly’

It might have been a long time coming, but I believe the time of the Japanese classic is finally with us. It had to happen eventually. The market moves on and, while a lot of the deceased estate collections I view belong to owners in their seventies and eighties and comprise mainly post-war British classics, the average age of buyers at our sales is probably somewhere in the fifties. That means they were usually brought up with Japanese bikes. There’s still a healthy market for vintage British iron and the really desirable post-war models like Vincents and BSA Gold Stars, but demand for quality Japanese bikes is creeping up – and so are prices. That’s obvious when you track the prices of early Honda CB750S over the last few years. Sandcast and K0 models are the collectors’ choice and, while 10 years ago you could pick up a sandcast model for under £10,000, now good examples regularly sell for £20,000-plus. Rarity helps; although there were around 7500 sandcast models built, a lot will have had crankcases replaced because of damage from broken drive chains in the early days of the CB750.

Other Japanese machines have made the step up, such as first-year Kawasaki Z1s. Demand – and prices – are rising for Kawasaki triples, ’60s Hondas and early Honda CBXS. Lower down the price scale, bikes like Yamaha’s XT500 and TT500 are appreciating rapidly. A few years ago, £3000-3500 would buy a lovely example. Now, you’d be looking at £7k for the same bike. Even the Honda C50/C90 is making good money. A 1973 C90 sold at Bonhams’ recent Stafford sale for £862. You couldn’t give them away a few years ago. Where will it all end? Well, the VMCC’S cut-off date for eligible bikes at their events is 25 years. So a first-year Honda Fireblade is a classic in the eyes of the VMCC – and why not? It depends on how you define ‘classic’, but generally any bike that was desirable or expensive and exotic in its day is still desirable now. Originality and a UK registration from new adds to its attraction. So is a CBR900RR a classic? Maybe. And if it isn’t yet, it might not be long until it is. Former car racer and bike fanatic Mark Bryan has been a motorcycle specialist at H&H since 2014