Katana Owners Club U.K.

Hi all,

As a post script to my newbie post I thought I'd try to post a pick of my Kat ready for restoration. Don't be fooled, as well as a unique paint job which I feel it is time to cover, everything is seriously in need of stripping and refurbishing and since I have everything to make it original I want to, and feel I should make it just about standard. I love the fact that so many Kats are out there in anything from concourse through to seriously tricked but when you have the makings of an original, why not?

Anyway, out of curiosity I went to see a local restorer who I could see knows his stuff from the projects in his workshop. He told me that the least I would pay for a nut and bolt job was £6K but to expect to have to budget up to £10,000! Now I always intended to fettle the bike up myself but I think I understand why we are seeing the price of classic bikes rocketing if collectors are going to pay this kind of money.

What really did my head in was what he said about value although I think it was probably his justification and sales pitch. He thought a concourse pop-up was worth £15,000. Are there really people out there who will pay that kind of money for one of our beloved Kats? I smart at the kind of prices we are seeing now with a fairly standard 750 with an asking price between £3-4,500 or a big Kat for £5-9,000. I don't think it bodes well for the enthusiast or my chances of adding an 1100 to the stable in the next year or two for a realistic price. Am I wrong or are we going to be made extinct by the collector in a few years?

Yes it’s sad but true that collectors with deep pockets are indeed pushing the prices of bikes that we hold dear. I’ve recently swapped my early unmolested GT750J Suzuki for my 1100 Kat as although it was valued between £8-9K by the KC I couldn’t sell it for £7000? I had the usual idiots offering silly money plus some really strange swap offers how about a really tatty Z650 the owner said was worth £6500 plus a Raleigh wisp moped
At the end of the day whatever it is your selling it’s only worth what the buyer is willing to pay and if he has deep pockets you might just get top dollar.

£15000 for a pop up , He got the decimal point in the wrong place! There has been a pop up for £4500 on eBay for just short of a year , it will still be there next year.

That said a few have sold this last year for £2500 ish ....

As for returning to standard , we built one from only a frame to MOT'd each member sourcing parts and refurbing them , the total cost was £1500 incl paint etc , I know this was mates rates and time cost free but that couldn't up the cost 10 times.

For insurance reasons I could see getting a secured repayment price, but that is so you had haggle room , I'm sure they would struggle with 15 grand at this time .......in 10 years maybe when it becomes legally historic.

Buying an 1100 from overseas is the way forward if you want one at the moment the prices are realistic, but you have to live with km/h clocks ....no real boggy though.

I think we are all singing from the same page on value and the one for sale at £4,500 was what started me off so i'm reassured it has been on there for 12 months. I never really paid attention to market price but as far back as I can remember a decent running 750 pop-up fetched around £1500 so I'd assume these days they might be topping out around £2,500. Still it's all irrelevant if your putting it on the road to ride and I assume that's what the club is all about and why I joined.

I'm going to restore it myself and lean on you all when I need a bit of advice. Having a rough idea of what needs doing and normal prices I don't think your £1500 pound guideline is going to be far off what it costs my Fossie. Everything is there so bearings, bolts, seals, gaskets and consumables are going to be the main purchases and all seem to be fairly easily sourced.

The best bit is that it means I've got a bit of spare cash for a cheap runner to bring a smile to my face during restoration so I'm hanging my nose over the 1100ESD on ebay finishing tomorrow currently at about a grand. Let me know if any of you guys are bidding on it as I'd back out rather than compete with another member.

Blix,
Can't remember if I mentioned it before but when I bought this from my mate Andy he had fitted an 1100 fairing which I still have in the red/orange shark's tooth pattern. Andy took a load of studio pictures after the rebuild and re-spray and I know he has a load of great framed pictures hidden somewhere. I'll keep[ twisting his arm to dig them out and post them some time for posterity. This time she will definitely be going back to original White and gold.