'WHAT MAKES A MOTORCYCLE COLLECTIBLE?"

Vintage motorcycle connoisseur Paul d’Orléans talks about what really makes a classic bike desirable, how the Steve McQueen factor influences auction prices, and his fear that demand and prices for collectable bikes could be about to rocket thanks to growing interest from speculators priced out of the classic car market.

Paul d’Orléans laughs at the suggestion that because a bike’s old or rare it is going to be collectable or desirable: “No! That’s never enough. Just because a painting is old doesn’t mean it’s valuable,” begins the author, journalist, Bonhams auction house consultant and all-round classic motorcycle expert. Indeed, just like their classic four-wheel counterparts, what gets collectors falling over themselves and pushes auctions into bidding frenzies is legacy and luxury.

“If a particular model did something at the racetrack in any one of many kinds of races that motorcycles do — grand prix racing, road racing, flat track, dirt, speedway, whatever — if a bike was considered an important, successful racer that makes it valuable,” he explains.

As for the second criterion, luxury, if a bike was the epitome of premium in its day, so not just refined, but exotic and desirable too, then it will be even more so today. But then there’s the noise it makes too, by which d’Orléans isn’t referring to engines or exhaust systems. “Probably the biggest factor of all is the buzz,” he says. “If it is something that has a lot of press and a lot of folklore or mythology around it, or popular songs, or has been seen in movies or television shows or with movie stars that definitely does something. And that can be a huge factor.”

That’s why the top 20 and indeed top 30 lists of the most expensive bikes ever sold at auction features more Brough Superiors than any other make of motorcycle. Considered by many as the Holy Grail, the British brand, which produced bikes for just 21 years between 1919 and 1940 was known as the Rolls-Royce of Motorcycles in its day and with an asking price greater than the average British home at the time, they were similarly priced.

Fast forward 70 years and it’s common for an SS100 model to go for upwards of £200,000 ($330,000) at auction and its less powerful SS80 sibling for £100,000 ($165,000) or more.

The demand for the Brough Superior has also been helped by the fact that it was the transport of choice for a number of celebrities of the day, including T.E. Lawrence and if a bike is associated with one famous name in particular, it can go from being interesting to desirable to threatening to set a new auction record.

“The Steve McQueen factor can be a real wildcard. You know it can bump something up by ten times its normal price. There’s no rationality to it with McQueen, it’s all about desire,” says d’Orléans.

But does that make him unique among automotive collecting circles? “I don’t think anyone would care about a Bruce Willis or Peter Fonda or Arnold Schwarzenegger bike,” d’Orléans responds, “But the Pope! That was a big one!”

The current Pontiff’s 2013 Harley Davidson Dyna Super Glide is the 14th most expensive motorcycle ever sold at auction. It went under the hammer in Paris this February for a scarcely believable $327,000. As such, it is one of only three bikes built in the 21st century to make it into the all-time top 30 list. The other two were incredibly rare, genuine factory racing Ducatis.

The sale of the Pope’s two-wheeler underlines that “It’s like any marketplace, whether wittingly or unwittingly, if desire is generated then you have price bumps,” says d’Orléans, who thinks that perhaps the only other living celebrity or sportsman that could add such a huge premium to a modern bike would be Valentino Rossi. If a bike that he had actually ridden to one of his nine MotoGP World Championships came up for sale, it could make the list. “A real Rossi world championship bike would go way up. But that hasn’t happened yet,” he says.

Unlike the classic car market, where the record price paid for a vehicle at auction stands at $29.65 million (€22.7 million) for Fangio’s 1954 F1 race-winning Mercedes-Benz, a lot at a classic bike sale is yet to come close to $1 million. The record is currently held by a 1915 Cyclone Board Track Racer which fetched $520,000 at auction in July 2008 in Monterey or $551,200 when adjusted for 2014.

Nevertheless, there are fears that as speculators and investors are priced out of the car market that they will all decamp, en masse, to the closest bike show and start driving prices up. As d’Orléans explains: “When you consider what a really nice classic Ferrari is costing now, you can pick up the equivalent motorcycle in terms of historical scale of importance in its genre for a pittance in comparison. You could spend $100,000 to $200,000 this year and pick up what anyone would consider one of the top 100 motorcycles of all time.”

And if someone were to switch allegiance from four wheels to two, would they be able to ride it on a daily basis or would it have to be mothballed indefinitely to protect its value?

“I don’t think too many people use them as daily riders, but for pleasure, why not? You wouldn’t want to commute in downtown New York or LA but I know lots of people that use them for rallies and small tours. I’m riding a Brough Superior in this year’s [Motorcycle] Cannonball which is from Daytona Florida to Tacoma, Washington,” d’Orléans answers with a laugh that signals he’s aware of what he might be letting himself in for; that the course is over 4150 miles (6678 km) and will take 16 days to complete on a bike that uses technology that dates back to the 1930s and has no suspension other than a sprung seat."

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