OUR TOP TEN… FAST CLASSICS
Classic bikes – they’re all mad old shitters yeah? Crappy 1960s British stuff that’s the equivalent fo a two wheeled Austin Allegro nutter Italian nonsense with psychotic electrics, or rust-bucke Japanese boa anchors from the 1970s. No power, even less brakes, and probably a worse choice thanjust taking the car
We you’re wrong daddio. It’s time to wake up, smell the coffee, and get yourself into twenty-nineteen my friend. Because Classic bikes are now, officially, really good. Tha’s because We’re using our new, convenient, Fast Bikes ‘15-20-year-old’ rule of classics, meaning that anything from around 1999-2004 is definitely in the classic sector. There are some sweeeeet wheels in there, and we’re dubbing them Fast Classics.
Even better, some of these could actually qualify as sensible investments. If you’ve been watching the prices on some bikes from the 1980s and 90s of late, you’ll know that bikes which cost just a couple of grand 10 or 15 years ago are now tipping the eBay scales at up to five times that much. Yamaha’s RD350 YPVS and RD500LC, Suzuki’s RGV250 and RG500, original 1998 Yamaha R1s – all were available on the cheap in the early noughties, and if you were lucky enough to have snatched one up back then, you’d have a right little earner in the garage now.
So, with no further ado, here’s our pick of the Fast Classics crop at the moment. Awesome bikes, for under £4k, which are great to buy and ride now – and which could well pay for themselves over the next five to 10 years.
2000-2006 HONDA VTR1000 SP1 AND SP2
OOOOh we’re being a bit cheeky here, because the VTR1000 SP1 and SP2 are already on the cusp of fashion, and might just have crept up in price beyond our £4k limit. But if you hunt hard, we’re sure you’ll come up with something…
The original VTR1000 was the much softer Firestorm (which can be had for proper pennies now) of 1997. Honda had been watching those pesky Italians with their
