Whilst the market for prestige bikes like Brough and Vincent's will probably always be boyant, I think other more normal bikes will sink to a much lower level. Let's be honest, anybody under 65 years old will almost certainly have never ridden or owned a classic British bike. I certainly haven't, but if I won the lottery, the I'd certainly find room for a Panther in thd Farage, but otherwise it'd be bikes I owned when younger, or bikes I felt I missed out on at the time. I'd have another Morini 3 1/2 at the drop of a hat, would love an SR00, GN400, XT600, Guzzi V50, BMW Air Head, Suzuki GT500 etc etc, etc. To run a British bike I'd also have to invest in new sockets and spanners 😱

Yes I'm having to buy imperial tools now I have the Crusader.
I've still got a few but fear I lost some in a house move / through using metric over the last 40+ years. I never did get my head around imperial back in the day. 15/16 King Dick anyone?

Aye Ian,

A glutton for punishment!

That'll keep you busy for a while and the postage costs + other taxes from Japan are horrendous.  :'(  All the best with it and regards to Simon.

Good health, Bill

Having sold my Black and Gold SRX earlier in the year to fund the Triumph Speed400 (which caused a lot of interest at the Stafford Show), I thought I would have recovered from the motorcyclist's disease "Gottohaveanotherone". But I was so wrong! I saw that "returning Simon" had an electric start one that he bought for spares would be up for sale due to relocation. I duly went to see it and purchased it a couple of days later. The bike seems generally complete and unmolested but there are a few bits I will have to get from Japan.
First job I had to do was remove the front forks as one of them was seized, (the bike having been stood for 7 years).
The unseized fork leg came apart quite readily, but you do need an extended tool to hold the piston whilst undoing the fine thread bolt at the base.
The seized one was a different ball game altogether. I undid the bottom bolt, but the slider and outer leg would not part company. Many attempts were tried and at one point 3 of us were on it trying to separate them. Eventually I had to compress the fork leg as tight as possible, hold the chrome slider in the 3jaw chuck on my lathe at work, insert a revolving centre and carefully machine the offending oil seal that was preventing disassembly. It finally succumbed after about 2 hours work in total trying to pull it apart.
I will need to get the sliding legs re hard chromed, new seals and dust shields, new spacer washers and fixed top bushes. These are split bushes and readily available. However the bottom bushes do not seem to be available at all so I will have to machine new ones possibly from Aluminium Bronze. These are split ones also and will be a bit more awkward to make. Enclosing (hopefully) a couple of pics.
Onwards and upwards!

There are the odd happenings that buck the trend - I sold the ES2 earlier this year to a bloke in his 40s who was fascinated by the very things you mention Ian. I watched hime ride off on it and apart from the odd wobble he seemed fine, and emailed me later to tell me how much he'd enjoyed the short ride home. I haven't heard from him since however...

And several years ago I sold the 1931 Sunbeam - hand change and all - to a student at Brum University who can't have been older than early 20s. I suspect he thought he was making an investment. His mum, who happened to be visiting him when I delivered the bike, was very disapproving and I got the impression she thought I shouldn't be taking advantage of such a callow youth. But it was his money...

I am really not surprised about this turn of events, not only are those of us old enough to remember bikes of the 50s and 60s being used as daily transport getting older and looking for more convenient bikes, but old bikes are totally alien to most bike riders today.

I had a conversation with a bloke at the bike shop recently who was probably in his 40s and because he had come to riding bikes later in life he had never ridden a bike without an electric starter or disc brakes. How would he cope with a magneto with an advance/retard lever, an air lever or decompressor, a right foot change or even a hand change etc. Or why would he want to?

In the same way that wind up gramophones gave way to hi-fi then to CDs and now to Alexa etc it was inevitable that other than a few enthusiasts who will always love odd things the bikes we might love will soon be a thing of the past.

Ian