The £10,000 Fizzy
Cheap bikes for teenagers are fetching serious money. Chris Carter reports
Earlier this month, Yamaha announced plans to sell a new range of e-bikes in Europe later this year, including two new electric mopeds. The Japanese motorbike brand is no newcomer to assisted pedal power. In the 1970s, it released the FS1-E moped, a “sixteener special” – so-named because of a 1971 British law that limited 16-year-old riders to bikes with 50cc engines. In response, manufacturers made mopeds – with both a small engine and pedals – aimed at teenagers.
If you were a teenager, “this was the bike to have”, says John Hogan in SuperBike magazine. “Fifty cc of two stroke freedom, sometimes at 30mph if you were going downhill and had a tailwind.” The “E” signalled that it was for sale in the English market. Around 200,000 British-bound “Fizzys”, as the mopeds were affectionately known, were made. Today, “bikers of a certain age seem more than happy… to part with vast sums of cash” to get their hands on one, says Hogan – perhaps with a view to reliving those wild, carefree years.
Be ready to dig deep
Japanese motorcycles from the 1970s and 80s made up almost a quarter of British-based collections holding at least five vehicles in 2018, according to insurer Hagerty. But collectors have to dig deep. Many Fizzys ended up on the scrapheap and relatively few have survived in a good condition. One Fizzy from 1976, which would have cost around £300 new, sold last October for £10,350 (including fees) in an auction run by Cheshire-based auction house H&H Classics at the National Motorcycle Museum in the West Midlands.
“Ten years ago a Fizzy would have only sold for around £1,500, but they’ve been gaining in popularity for some years now with prices now reaching into the thousands,” says Jeremy Curzon, motorbike specialist at auction house Cheffins, in Cambridge. “However, no one would have guessed that one of these sixteener specials could have made over £10,000!” Cheffins is selling a Fizzy at
“You could jump straight on without any training and ride indefinitely on L-plates”
its April Vintage Sale, with an estimate of £3,000-£4,000.
If you were lucky, you might have progressed from a 50cc Fizzy to a 1978 249cc Kawasaki KH Triple – one of which is also appearing in the sale. “Bikes such as the Fizzy and the Kawasaki KH Triple were so popular in the 1970s, when, as a youth, you could jump straight on without any training and ride them indefinitely on L-plates,” says Curzon. “The Fizzy was probably the most iconic and beloved of them all and to this day holds a very special place in the hearts of those who were teenagers in the mid to late1970s, myself included.”