Selling Your Classic

Presentation

First impressions count for a lot. You do not want the bike you’re selling to be lost in a crowd of shiny temptation – or even the rather more fashionable tatty temptation. Your first task is to make your bike catch the famous eye of the beholder – and we all know what lies in that eye. So give the thing the best clean it’s ever had. Even if you’re intent upon taking advantage of the current craze for patina, and the fabled ‘barn find’ there is no reason why a well-worn, unrestored machine shouldn’t be clean. So… clean your machine.

Advice occasionally offered to prospective buyers should always include the suggestion that if a bike is dirty, lathered in oily grot, the reason might well be that there’s something to hide. Buying a rusty, oily wreck for the