Oem vs restomod?

[sav0r]

As a "from a distance" lover of BMW motorcycles, some BWM owners are like the stuffiest of the stuffy. I say that as a hopeful stuffy person I guess.

[AAAltered]

As DaveDogg mentioned, period correct aftermarket stuff makes for a very interesting build IMO.

It took me 10 years to gather my bits:  DG Air Caps, DG swinger, DG Heads, Moto Carrera pipes and Rearsets, etc.

I can tell you that stuff alone gets a lot of interest from passer-bys.  Especially the heads.

Dave and I intend to ride to a local show together next month and we both have significant period correct aftermarket parts.  It will be cool to have the bikes side by side.

[busa1300]

If I bought the bike to sell....OEM
If I bought the bike and all I had to start with was a frame....then restomod.
If I bought a bike that was complete, yet needed a complete rebuild so I could ride it like I wanted....Somewhere in between the two.

I think the point for me here on this is I want to ride the bikes and build them so I can. Removing known issues from the original.
Then saving the original parts and put them up on the shelf until it's time to quit riding....then I put the stock parts back on and cash out.






Trust me ......I did not take the easy route by not going 100% OEM.....It takes time and some calculation to make everything work together better than what the factory does





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[rodneya]

Stock, big and boring
Restomod, sweet ride

[pdxjim]

[teazer]

Busa hit the nail on the head.  My first RD400 was stock, so that's how it was rebuilt.  I had one stock GT750 that I restored. The rest were incomplete, so they were modified to a greater or lesser extend.  One was changed into a Dunstall with a few upgrades, one was more or less stock but fitted with GS mag wheels.  The others were cut and welded and tweaked to make them much lighter and easier to ride.

My RZ is stock apart from seat and pipes and I'd love one with better suspension and bigger motor etc, but I can't see myself doing that to this one. It's not perfect.  Well to my eyes it is.   

[soonerbillz]

This actually turned out to be one of my better threads.. great responses and thoughts..
That AS1 I recently bought and sold.. so deserved to be restored.
But I had not the time or funds.. I started thinking of turning it into a race bike.. but couldn't do it.. so I sold it.
Hope it gets the restoration it deserved.

[Yamanatic]

Following someone else's instructions on what to do with your bike seldom turns out; it's YOUR bike, and you should do exactly as you want with and to it. You want a reverse cantilever 3 shock front end with  Flintstones front wheel, go for it - it's fun to build and personalize to your pleasure.

As far as Concourse bikes and restorations go, the most value is with the unrestored; decent, unmolested and untouched low-wear originals are far and away the most valuable, and usually pull the top trophy even if the bike does not shine like the sun.

The cost of a correct restoration in many cases makes little financial sense, but is utimately fulfilling if it turns out the way you planned. If it's the activity of restoration that sucks you in, pick a rare or highly desirable bike, say a Scott Flying Squirrel over a YDS3 (sorry folks - S3's are one of my favorite platforms, but they are just not worth much). Remember it costs the same amount of time and money (rare parts aside) to restore a Vincent as it does to restore a Vespa.

A resto-mod can also be worth; not all mods are bad. When selling a number of RZ350's about 20 years ago (had 11 at one time once), the top dollar bikes were the YWB Roberts editions with Toomey's, K&N Y-boot intakes, and a quality fork brace. Stock KR's (Cat-converter) were about 85% the value, and all others fell into place behind them. Today, it's stock original, even if it's a RWB.

Period correct stuff is also fun. One of my bikes (first place at both shows I brought it to) is period-correct but obviously modified racer; close to stock, but no cigar. Frame has been cut and the shock angles changed (period Koni's installed), drilled disks, and a set of radical expansion chambers made by Kel Carruthers in 1975 are the most obvious. Proven, industry wide acceptable improvements are not taboo:

The restoration took 5 years to complete, cost a fortune, and gave me more hours of joy, happiness, and challenges than can be described - it would have been '$worth$' more on the collector market if the modifications were reversed and it was a bone stone stocker, but it is the way I wanted it.

The social aspects are also to be considered; it is fun talk what's been done and how it works. At bike shows like VJMC events, some of the best conversations have been out in the parking lot talking about some modified rider someone rode in on. The concourse show people do way too much picking and criticizing for my tastes; that's the biggest reason I only go to shows as a spectator any more...if something isn't right, just deduct the points, and don't badmouth anyone's efforts, as bad as they may be (safety aspects aside; we don't want to kill anyone!).