Antique & Classic Cars Blog

It’s fun to go to the motorcycle show at the Minneapolis convention center and look at all the bikes I can’t afford. The venue is also good for thinking about classic versus modern iron–issues like looks, speed, starts every time, vintage versus modern braking, handling, power.

Urals are like the (original) VW Beetle of the two-wheel world–they’re simple, relatively inexpensive, and exude classic styling. With their boxer engines (pistons moving in and out like a boxer’s fists, rather than up and down like a kid on the interstate trying to get a trucker to hit the airhorns), they look like BMWs. The legend I heard was that they essentially are vintage BMWs, made with tooling seized by the Russians at the end of WWII. (I’ll google that later.) Here my friends Keith and Michele contemplate sidecar living. (They really want the sidecar to transport their greyhound, Gobi, since K & M both own bikes.)

Ahh, a Harley flat-tracker. Ever see footage of the old Triumph and Harley guys battling it out on a dirt track rounding the turns with the bike half-sideways? Great stuff. Betty’s Bikes and Buns, a coffee shop that used to be just off Central Avenue north of Minneapolis, used to show them all the time….

The BSA lightning is one of the coolest looking bikes ever. Someday when prices reverse and I can get one like this for $1500, I’ll be riding or pushing it all over town. There was a ‘53 Vincent Black Lightning being raffled off too–now there’s a valuable bike. But it was $5 and they were going to sell about 25,000 tickets…. Sheesh. Odds of winning were like a million to one. I bought 5 tickets for a ‘68 Mustang at World of Wheels last year and I still didn’t win, so I guess you’d have to buy like 20 tickets to assure you got it. I didn’t have $100.

A recurring thought at the show was how much comic art has influenced motorcycle design. Didn’t lines like these appear first in anime or graphic novels or even Power Rangers?

Didn’t see Prince at the show, but he might have liked this bike (or the vehicle formerly known as this bike).

Here’s an interesting approach. Can’t decide on a paint scheme? Then pick your best two and do a little Batman’s Two-Face action.

Fast.

And finally, an MV Agusta F4…. Mmm-mmm. (Yes, that price on the back does say $25,000. Soon as my eToys stock rebounds, it’s off to the dealership.) Yee hah.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 8:14 am and is filed under Car parts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.