Classic Bike Guide

The big question – looking at motorcycles as investments

UNLESS YOU’VE BEEN ASLEEP FOR THE LAST 10 or so years you’ll have witnessed the potentially worrying trend that is – motorcycles as a form of investment. Although, to a fair degree, bikes and cars have almost constantly been perceived as having some potential as speculatory assets, the trend has somewhat snowballed since the financial crash of 2008. When classic bike dealers start advertising machines as ‘inflation proof assets’ more than a few greybeards raise their eyebrows towards the heavens with a knowing glint in their eyes; but why? Simply because we’ve been here before in the not too distant past.

Sometime ago during the yuppie era, the so-called smart money could, apparently, see the writing on the wall and those in the know began buying high end classic cars rather than investing with banks, playing the stock markets etc. And those self-same smart arses also managed to move their wheeled assets on to someone else just before the world went into financial meltdown, doubling, trebling or even quadrupling their outlay. Unfortunately far too many punters who’d grabbed onto the coat tails of these wise guys didn’t have the market place nous, the inside tips or the weather eye before the financial storm broke. The end result was that a large proportion who’d invested

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