I started to write a reply in another thread about how much I would like to have a "vintage" airhead as a long term restoration project.
Then I realized that like a lot of what I write, it was getting way too long and creeping way too far off topic to remain there.
Instead I put it here.
I really would love a /6 to /7 R50/60/75 and have for a long time.
Unfortunately I've left my run way too late on that score and they are mostly now in the hands of collectors - and I deliberately use the word "collector" rather than "restorer". There is a person not far from where i live who has 20 airheads under his house quietly rusting and dripping the odd drop of oil. He has no intention (or I suspect the ability) to ever restore any of them, he is just sitting on them in the hope that one day someone will pay him cubic $$$s to take some or all of them away.
It's for the fact of missing the boat on an early airhead that I intend to buy a K100RS in the next year or so and keep it alive to the standard of being able to ride it anywhere i want to for a few years to be followed at the appropriate time (after I retire) by a full restoration.
Timing if everything as they say, so to is knowing what is worth keeping.
To my eternal shame I was given an R68 sidecar outfit many years ago, yes that is R68, not the R69 or R69S, the model that nearly sent BMW motorcycling to the wall.
The R68 in solo form (manufactured 1952 ~54) was the first production BMW to be capable of exceeding 100mph (and frankly one of the few motorcycles that could anywhere at the time). It was assembled to such fine tolerances that the only gaskets in the engine were the head gaskets and rocker cover gaskets.
From memory they only made 3,500 of them making them now amongst the very rarest post war BMWs.
I received mine from a deceased uncle, he had bought it new and then attended to all work on it after, which meant that by the mid 1980s it was a bit dilapidated and in need of a careful and sensitive restoration. I rode it once or twice and compared the R100 or the GPZ1100 I owned at the time it was simply a slow boring and uncomfortable motorbike. At the time I was rebuilding a 500cc Velocette and that project was stalled by needing a cash injection. I sold the R68 to raise funds to complete the Velocette.
I finished the Velo and quickly discovered that aside from launching a cheeky young lad who reckoned there was no magic in starting old English singles over its handlebars, the Velo had bugger all to recommend it, and it too was sold (probably also at an undervalue as I had had a gutful of its constant requirement for "fettling")
As the R100 and I aged gracelessly into old age I came to realize what I had in the R68 and I keenly regret to this day that I had not valued it higher.
Only recently my aunt told me that in the late 70s the local BMW dealer had offered my uncle a brand new R90s as a straight swap for the R68 and he had knocked them back on the basis that it was worth more and that young Tony would appreciate it in due course. i really hope that wherever he is now that he has got over his nephew's stupidity and forgiven me.
The moral of the story is don't let go of what you have unless you know its worth, and don't hanker for stuff you know bugger all about (like ancient "high performance" British bikes).
