Release ‘valve!
Given the value that many classics are now realising as stock machines, it’s little wonder that so many Yamaha Elsies and Powervalves are restored as standard, yet back in the day you’d be hard pressed to ever see one that had remained as it rolled out of the Yamaha factory…
Even those folk who had owned a modified bike back in the 1980s – who have since regained an interest in owning those self-same models – tend to gravitate towards keeping them as the factory intended, essentially just because that’s how they retain the best value.
But there are still those folk who shun the world of the standard machine, and who shy away from the extra value that a perfectly standard bike will gain when sold and, in doing so, get the net result of
