Start ‘em Up
Legend of the Motorcycle
May, 2006
Hey folks. Just back from a quick jaunt to Half Moon Bay, where against a backdrop of lush, sweeping lawn and rocky California coastline there were arrayed over 300 of the sexiest vintage motorcycles on the planet. The event? The first-ever Legend of the Motorcycle, a concours d’elegance modeled after the annual collector car extravaganza that descends on Pebble Beach every August. The venue: the gorgeously green grounds of the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay. Despite a blustery gray coastal day, the event drew several thousand attendees, including celeb bike enthusiasts Peter Fonda (natch), Ewan MacGregor, Peter Coyote and Jesse James and his wife Sandra Bullock.
The top collectors were out in force, strutting their finest bikes, from early gems like the 1910 Harley-Davidson “Silent Grey Fellow,” with its leather belt drive and dramatic longhorn handlebars, and the earliest BMW bike (from 1923) to the Honda NR 750, a Grand Prix racer known for its unique oval pistons that sold for $60,000 new back in 1992 and contemporary concept bikes like Arlen Ness’s “Mach Ness,” a streamlined monster with a jet turbine engine. From quaint early board racers to throaty, swoopy choppers, the variety and quality were amazing.
The event featured the largest assembly ever of super-rare Crocker V-Twins (fewer than 100 were made, some 40 survive and there were maybe a dozen here) and of the Brit marque Brough Superior. Both are brawny, swashbuckling bikes. The Brough is best known for being the motorcycle on which Lawrence of Arabia packed it in. And the Crockers? Well, they are American motorcycling’s design icon—without them, you’d have no Harley Fat Boys. Indeed, it was a 1940 Crocker Big Tank that rode away with Best of Show honors.
I’m working on a story on the market for vintage motorcycles for the July issue of Forbes Collector. There will be more details about the event there. —M.S.
