Motorcycle Investor mag Subscribe to our free email news Boom or Bust? Part 2 – July 21, 2020
The Generation Game by Guy 'Guido' Allen Baby boomers have driven a big rise in the collectible vehicle market and the question on a lot of people’s lips is what happens when that gen fades away? Is there a bike price crash coming? Listen to a group of baby-boomers (so, over 55) talk about the classic bike market and you’ll more often than not hear predictions of doom and gloom. As this generation, which has driven up the market and kept it afloat, dies out so too will interest in their toys. They reckon most of their prized possessions will either get carted off to the nearest auction house with instructions to sell at any price, while anything that doesn’t sell is dumped at the tip. The reasons put forward for this are several – let’s have a squiz at them. Too difficult to ride: millennials in particular no longer learn how to drive manual cars, so manual bikes that are sometimes a bit cranky are just too hard; Too much stuff: who’s going to take over all this crap? There’s just too much of it. And, no-one will be able to afford it. Let’s tackle the list of problems from the top, shall we?
Wrong era All of those things happen. However many of the world’s top investment bikes were made long before the baby boomers were even a late-night passionate glint in their eyes of their parents. Right now, prices for top-echelon machines from 1910 through to the late 1930s are booming. The earlier bikes may be doing it because they’re historically important and have the cachet of being over a century old. As for machines from the 1930s, they’re just so damned good looking (I’m thinking Brough Superior, A-series Vincent and the like) while being the forebears of what we recognise as a modern performance motorcycle, rather than a powered bicycle. Sure our age means we’re naturally attracted to the legend of the sixties and seventies, such as Bonneville, Commando, CB750-Four and Z900, but the serious numbers being paid for much older gear says there is a lot more than a birthday behind a classic buyer’s decision-making. I reckon some of the legendary models mentioned above, among others, will hold lasting appeal. Too difficult to ride Sure, pretty much everyone learns to drive in an auto these days and, outside motorcycling, manual transmissions are becoming an endangered species. But let’s not kid ourselves on this. Compare the complexities of ‘driving’ an iPhone with operating a stick and a third pedal in a car, or a couple of extra levers on a motorcycle – I’m sorry, but we’re not even on the same planet. Anyone who can work the operating system and several layers of software in a smartphone can cope with a manual transmission. And let’s take a look at one of the most popular classic bikes out there, namely Indians out of the thirties, forties and fifties. There are literally thousands of these things in service around the world – heck, one of my local clubs has over 300 members. The vast majority of people who currently ride these things did not cut their learner teeth on crash transmissions, foot clutches and manual retard/advance. Oh no, they’ve had to pick it up later in life. Is there any valid reason why an interested millennial wouldn’t do the same? I doubt it. No personal vehicles Sure, it may happen eventually, but I doubt even our kids will be alive. To give you an idea of time scale, a group of three authors from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics suggests that market penetration of automated vehicles in Europe by 2030 will be anything from 18 to 25 per cent. The message? Don’t hold your breath waiting for the big shift. Too much stuff But cold numbers suggest this won’t be an overwhelming trend, in part because the size of the potential market in Australia continues to grow. The Bureau of Statistics says that our population reached 25 million at the end of 2018, a rise of more than 400,000 in the preceding year and part of a longer-term trend that shows no sign of abating. Now gen-X and millennials have been hobbled by expensive education and outrageous house prices, which has delayed discretionary spending. That’s a fancy way of saying it’s probably taking longer for them to get to get the mortgage and other living bills under control. However, unlike the boomers, many if not most will be have lifetime superannuation savings. In any case, the good old Bureau of Stats comes to our rescue with the thought that, while wages have stagnated in recent years, household wealth – despite some inevitable periodic setbacks – has consistently risen over the decades. That’s a rather long way of saying the numbers tend to defy what our eyes and instincts may tell us. What next? ***
Oddball of the week Prominent fails Most expensive bike ever sold at public auction Climbing values? Honda 1968 CB750-Four prototype (of four) Ducati 1974 750SS green frame Know your generations ------------------------------------------------- Produced by AllMoto abn 61 400 694 722 |
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