NOS: PART OF THE PROBLEM?
The golden age of cheap, plentiful new-old-stock parts is long gone, so how much is left? Will the supply of new parts run out, leaving certain bikes unrestorable, or will the manufacturers start remaking tanks, pipes, panels and big-ticket items for our
Spares are the lifeblood of the modern-classic world. Without them our old bikes won’t run, and restoration projects will grind to a halt. Fortunately, the parts we need come in numerous guises, from used and refurbished to reproduction. And yet for restorers of 1960s-1990s machines there is one variety of spare part that’s valued more highly than any other – new-old-stock.
There’s something very special – almost spiritual for some – about receiving a component that’s as fresh as the day it left the factory and still encased in its original manufacturer’s wrapping. That’s one of the many attractions of new-old-stock, even if the name itself can be slightly misleading.
NOS is a blanket term denoting unused genuine parts. While there are certainly components that have sat on a shelf for 30 years or more still in their packaging (the true sense of ‘new-old-stock’), there are also spares for long obsolete machines still rolling off manufacturers’ production lines – new spares for old bikes, if you will.
It’s a difference worth knowing because some unused spares can deteriorate over time, even in packaging, whereas those recently made should be tip-top. But I digress…
The infantry of NOS spares is not an inexhaustible supply, even if some parts are still being made new. For many popular models – Kawasaki triples, Yamaha LCS, Suzuki GSX-R750S, to name three – the finite quantity of certain components is getting ever squeezed, so how long will stock last and are we nearing a point where a lack of spares will render certain bikes unrestorable? Not Kawasaki Z1s, reckons seasoned restorer Paul Scanlon. “There’s still a lot of new-old-stock stuff out there for Kawasaki Zeds, mostly from America and Canada. There’s a seller on ebay, Dave Howard (seller ID UKS1), who sells a lot of Kawasaki stuff – he used to sell the parts that Rick Brett found in the US. Rick would hunt down all this unused stock in old dealers and send it back over to the UK by the container load. Dave manages to get his hands on
the sort of stuff you’d think was unobtainable.
“There’s another ebay seller (by the name of Mach IV) who specialises in triples,” continues Paul, “and he can get hold of some really hard to find parts. Stuff like original lacquer-covered levers – they’ll set you back £150-£200 a lever, but for those who only want original they’ll pay whatever it takes. Cost doesn’t come into it for guys who want a perfect restoration. It’s the same with NOS reg-rectifiers. I’ll say to someone whose Zed I’m restoring that they can either have a quality replica for under £100 or an original that won’t be as good for £700 and they’ll want the original!”
The sale of genuine parts is big business and in the UK there are a number of highly successful outfits for whom new spares are their bread and butter, or a sizable chunk of their overall business. David Silver Spares have become the go-to for Honda restorers due to their extensive infantry (offering parts for more than 1000 different models), intimate knowledge of the Big H’s most popular models, and their unwavering commitment to hunt down even the hardest to find parts.
Canterbury-based Robinsons Foundry are the Suzuki equivalent of Dave Silver, stocking over 19,000 lines of spares for the Hamamatsu machines. One of the firm’s directors, Michelle Robinson, is currently working her way through the painstaking task of cataloguing their vast stock. “We’ve got two big warehouses full of stock,” she told CMM. “The real trick to this game is letting people know what you have; with almost 20,000 components on our shelves that isn’t easy, but most of our customers know exactly what they want so they’re already armed with the part number and that makes the job a whole lot easier.
“Our spares side has got bigger over the last 20 years, coinciding with the rise in interest of modern classics. Most enquiries are still for the 1970s and 80s stuff. We get a lot of calls for GT parts, particularly 550s and 750s. T500s and AP50S are also up there, as are GSS – the 1000s being far and away the most popular.”
Ironically, some of the best catered for bikes in terms of spares – both new-old-stock and quality reproduction – are actually those from the 1960s and 70s, rather than machines built in the 80s and 90s, as the VJMC’S and CMM’S own Steve Cooper explains. “Even though the volume of NOS parts isn’t what it was back in the 1990s, there’s still a lot out there for anything from the 1960s, right through to the mid/late 1980s – more than you might think, so it’s always worth trying to find a new part before you hunt down a used replacement because you might come up trumps. Even panels, seats and exhausts still turn up, just not in the volume that they used to. For bikes of a certain status, like Kawasaki Z1s and H2s, restoration has become easier in recent years despite some new-old-stock parts becoming less available; quality aftermarket and reproduction parts have filled the void.”
To that end, Japanese company Doremi is now the go-to for Z1/900/H2 restorers wanting new fuel tanks, tinware, exhausts and more. And the quality of their products is, in many cases, better than original. The reason older models are much better catered for in terms of reproduction parts is down to the materials used; 60-70s bikes tended to be put together with metal mudguards, less bodywork and components that are far more easily restored. From the 80s onwards bikes were clothed in complex plastic panels, with individual parts linked by intricate rubber or plastic fixings – stuff that perishes and is hard, plus expensive to remake.
But what of the manufacturers themselves? Have
they recognised the demand for new-old-stock parts from restorers and enthusiasts the world over? The simple and encouraging answer is ‘yes’. Kawasaki have long engaged with the brand loyalty of their customers, frequently sighting the lineage from the 1972 Z1 to GPZ900R, right up to the latest Z900RS, as the very DNA of their machines.
A recent production run of new, slightly updated Z1 cylinder heads shows just how much Kawasaki ‘gets’ its customers.
Manufacturers don’t take lightly the decision to remake parts; it’s a costly job to retool for a less than mighty return so Kawasaki’s decision to reproduce a major Z1 component shows that the factories are taking notice of the modern classic scene. The decision to remake Z1 cylinder heads is for now a one-off, according to Kawasaki, perhaps to test the water – time will tell. The run of heads was initially meant for the Japanese market only, but word got out around the world and the scale of interest made its way back to Japan.
If you do place an order, however, you’ll need deep pockets. According to Paul Scanlon you won’t get much change from £2000 for the head.
Valves, cams, gaskets and shims (all still available) are an additional cost.
Suzuki are another manufacturer keen to bring new spares for old bikes back under their roof. In fact, Suzuki GB pioneered their own Vintage Parts Programme almost a decade ago – the first manufacturer to do so. Suzuki Aftersales Marketing Co-ordinator Tim Davies was the brains behind the idea. “I wanted to make refurbishing old Suzukis as easy as possible for owners,” Tim told CMM. “I’d been talking to customers and dealers (Robinsons, Crooks and Redcar) about the problems around supplying parts for older bikes; I wanted the process to be clear and easy. I also knew that if we got it right then it would make a fantastic business plan.
“Back in 2011/12 we set about devising how we could do this, and the most logical way was to manually check all the parts books against the system to list all the stock we had and weed out those that we didn’t. Once we had this information, we went about building a one-stop shop website for all old Suzuki parts.
“We launched the Suzuki Vintage Parts Programme back in 2013 with two models, the
GT750 and RGV250 VJ21 – we now have 23 bikes listed. One thing that was blindingly obvious was the fact that customers would search high and low to find a part for their old bike but would not talk to their local Suzuki dealer, which should have been their first port of call. The point we like to get across to customers is that if your bike isn’t part of the programme it doesn’t mean we don’t have parts for it, so make a wish list and talk to your local Suzuki shop or one of our specialist dealers.”
A CMM source at Kawasaki concurs: “It’s always best to go to a dealer who is interested in older spares. I know someone who got a brand new clutch cover gasket for a 1972 H1B from a Kawasaki dealer. Obviously, you won’t get everything, but it’s worth the initial call – you won’t know unless you ask, and you may be pleasantly surprised. Dealers like Corby Kawasaki and Cradley Kawasaki are specialists in this field, as are Fowlers of Bristol.”
In fact, Fowlers are a huge player in the spares market right across the spectrum of marques – the largest supplier of new parts in the UK. The company’s keen to point out, however, that its vast infantry of parts is made up of new spares for old bikes, not stuff that’s been gathering dust on shelves for decades, and it’s a catalogue that’s constantly being replenished by fresh orders from Japan and Europe. Last year those supplies were more important than ever, as the demand for parts soared throughout lockdown.
“There's been a significant increase in demand for parts over recent years,” a spokesperson for Fowlers Spares department told us. “Things really took off during the first lockdown, because lots of people found themselves paid to stay at home on furlough, with time to spend on project bikes that’d
languished in the garage for years. A fairly typical example was a chap ordering parts for a Suzuki GS1000 that had been left untouched in his garage since he got married 20 years ago!”
In fact, it’s possible to build a complete bike from new spares, as Suzuki showed at the 2014 NEC Show when it built a TL1000S using parts from its Vintage Scheme. But to do so is eye-wateringly expensive and only possible with certain models. Doing so also flies in the face of restoration, and with so many big components able to be brought back to life – frames, wheels, bodywork, seats, fuel tanks, wiring looms, engines, etcetera – most restorers’ new part purchases tend to be things that cannot be refurbished, yet make a massive difference to the overall look and feel of a restored bike. “The really popular new parts for old bikes could best be described as rubber, trim and bolts,” Fowlers told us. “Things like footrests and side panel grommets. Metal parts can be polished, painted, or rechromed, but rubber components such as seals and hoses perish and have to be replaced with new; any visible fastener looks a lot better shiny than rusty, and although not cheap, these old classics have a value. Items such as mudguards and side panels are frequently replaced.”
Given that rubber and plastic parts represent a large, if not the largest, type of parts purchased, this is where the difference between new-old-stock and new spares for old bikes becomes crucial. Rubber hardens and perishes over time, even if it’s bagged up, so you may throw good money after bad by buying, say, 30-year-old inlet rubbers because they’ll be as stiff and brittle as the ones you want to replace. Same with NOS wiring looms; they can be riddled with issues.