Classic Sport Bikes For Sale

Tagged: AHRMA

Ducati

1967 Ducati Mark 3 Vintage Racer

1967 Ducati 250 Mark 3 Race Bike L Side

With all the laurels they’ve earned for wins on track and ink expended, or keys keyed, to express the love for the raucous bark of their v-twin motorcycles, it’s easy to forget that Ducati, like most manufacturers, got their start making single-cylinder motorcycles.

1967 Ducati 250 Mark 3 Race Bike R Side Front

For much of the motorcycle’s history, they were practical, inexpensive transportation first, racing machines a distant second, and you can’t get much more simple and reliable than the good ol’ single-cylinder. “Thumpers” are simple to design and manufacture, have fewer moving parts to break or need adjustment, and can be made in a huge range of displacements. In addition, their torquey power delivery and strong, friendly character make them excellent tools for the street.

1967 Ducati 250 Mark 3 Race Bike Dash

A small manufacturer couldn’t hope to compete in terms of sophistication with industrial giants like Honda, so Ducati stayed with forms of racing that played to their considerable strengths. While the Ducati Mark 3 may have been only a 250cc machine, the Diana Super Sport was the fastest 250 on the market at the time and could top “the ton” with relative ease. It did not feature Ducati’s now ubiquitous Desmo positive valve operation and used traditional springs, but it was a thoroughbred in every other way.

1967 Ducati 250 Mark 3 Race Bike L Engine

This example has been fully prepped for the track and includes a metal belly pan, unusual dry clutch, and a four leading-shoe front drum brake from a period Suzuki for some improved stop to go with the engine’s uprated poke.

From the original eBay listing: 1967 Ducati Mark 3 250cc Vintage Racing Motorcycle

1967 Ducati A.H.R.M.A. legal in 250 GP and eligible to bump up to 350 GP class.
This bike has been developed over the past twenty years and last raced in 2013.
The frame is Ducati with custom fork crowns and Ceriani forks.
Rear shock mounts by the owner with Progressive Suspension Shocks.
The front brake is Suzuki 4LS and the rear brake is stock Ducati.
The engine uses a Euro Red crank, Arais piston, Megacycle cam, and Ducati rockers with light weight valves.
The dry clutch is from Italy. The crank has been balanced to minimize vibration.
The bike uses a total loss ignition with points and coil. It has a Scitsu tachometer.
Spares include sprockets, cables, pegs, shifter, levers, battery, and jets.

With just a single bid for $5,999 and the reserve not yet met, it’s unfortunate this bike hasn’t found a buyer yet, with three days to go. It seems like a great turnkey way to get into the vintage racing scene, something I’d really love to do myself.

1967 Ducati 250 Mark 3 Race Bike L Grip

There’ve been a number of really neat vintage racing machines up for sale recently on eBay, track bikes and race-eligible machinery that looks well-prepared and ready to go. These seem like they’d be a good bet for a buyer: obviously used harder than many pampered street machines, the upside is that they’re owned by gearheads and racing requires certain minimum safety and therefore maintenance standards be met. If you’re trusting your life to something you’re going to be pushing to the limit, your standards for just what constitutes “safe” do tend to go up a bit…

1967 Ducati 250 Mark 3 Race Bike R Rear

In addition, my personal experience with bikes and cars is that, the more you use them, the better they work. Sitting collecting dust in a garage or showroom is bad for bikes: tires and hoses dry out and crack, gaskets weep, parts seize and rust…

-tad

1967 Ducati 250 Mark 3 Race Bike R Side

 

Norton

1964 Norton Atlas Race Bike for Sale

1964 Norton Atlas L Rear

Powered by Norton’s proven parallel twin and suspended in their simple and rigid “Featherbed Frame”, the bike, the Atlas features classic British styling and an evocative name. The British biking industry is rightly famed for its singles and parallel twins, and Norton used both to great effect, first with their long-lived Manx, a bike so elemental and right it was competitive literally for decades, then in a line of twins starting with the Dominator.

1964 Norton Atlas R Rear

The 500cc Dominator gave way to the 750cc Atlas. With lower compression and a single carburetor, it wasn’t much more powerful than the “Dommie” on paper, but supplied the torque and displacement required for strong US sales, the major goal of the model. As displacement grew, so did vibration, to the point where a solution was required before the introduction of the later Commando.

1964 Norton Atlas Dash

Reving to 7,500rpm and making over 70hp, this particular bike might possibly vibrate enough to shake your teeth loose, but it’s intended as a race bike so that really shouldn’t matter too much! And it has all that wonderful naked metal to stare at while the feeling comes back into your hands and feet.

1964 Norton Atlas R Suspension

From the original eBay listing: 1964 Norton Atlas Race Bike for Sale

Here’s a professionally built, fully sorted Norton Atlas 750 race bike. The bike was built, developed and raced by Les Cook of Cook’s Norton Service as a rolling business card in AHRMA’s BEARS (British European American Racing Series) class. The frame is a modified slimline Norton featherbed, WITH TITLE!

This final version of the bike spares no expense in terms of mechanical components. Nearly everything is top shelf (and very pricey) aftermarket, from the Steve Maney Racing engine, ignition, exhaust, and belt drive, to the TT Industries, drum selector, magnesium-cased racing gearbox. Just the Maney parts and TT Industries gearbox sell new for approximately $15k. Add to that alloy fuel, oil and catch tanks, shouldered alloy wheels, Lockheed Racing caliper front disk, Grimeca cush-drive rear hub, Works Performance shocks, electronic racing tach, two race seats (Manx-style and alloy cone type), Amal Mk2 carbs, magnesium steering clamps, and Cosentino Engineering cartridge fork internals, and the major parts total grows to well over $22k, before considering all the miscellaneous items: cables, manifolds, clip-ons, timing set, race tires, chain, petcocks, plumbing, hand and foot levers, and wiring. Figure another $1k for those items. Then there’s professional assembly of the race engine, $3-5k. So, just the parts and engine build and we’re around $27k. But then, this bike is complete, available now, fully sorted, fully safety-wired and with a fabricated alloy belly pan, newly made fairing mounts (no fairing though). If you tried to build a Norton slimline featherbed-based race bike of similar specification, you’d be in to it for at least $25-30k, plus a few hundred hours more in assembly, tuning, sorting, safety wiring, etc. What’s your time worth?

According to Les’s dyno sheets, this bike generates 72.1 rear wheel horsepower at 7400 rpm and 59.1 ft-lbs torque at 5300 rpm. Importantly, hp was 70 or higher from 6500 to 7500 rpm and torque is 50 ft-lbs or more from 4200-7500rpm. This is a well-tuned, well-sorted stonker of an engine!

1964 Norton Atlas Carbs

The listing also includes a comprehensive account of the parts that went into the build and a bit of history. This bike isn’t quite complete, but wouldn’t take very much to make it so: just add fairing. Or you could just ride it as-is. Take this beast to the track, or maybe convert it to street duty? I wonder just what that would require… Either way, you’ve got some pretty serious performance on tap for a fifty year old motorcycle!

Bidding is almost at $13,000 with five days left on the auction. Jump in now for this chance to own a fire-breathing British classic!

-tad

1964 Norton Atlas L Side

 

Honda

Vintage Racer: 1975 Honda Elsinore 125 MTR Road Racer

For Sale: 1975 Honda Elsinore 125 MTR Road Racer AHRMA

What is more “classic sport bike” than a vintage road racer credited with starting the careers of numerous racing legends? Essentially an “over the counter” racebike that was sold to the public, the MTR 125 featured an engine borrowed from the 125 Elsinore dirt bike, and many other bits taken from existing Honda parts bins. The result was a surprisingly capable racer, pushing 26 horsepower and six-speeds and creating a close, competitive class.

These bikes are also surprisingly popular – see this one on RSBFS, and this one as written up by fellow contributor Brian right here on CSBFS.

With a tiny engine, tiny cockpit and tiny clip-ons, these are not for the large of scale individual. Still, it is more fun riding a slow bike fast than a fast bike slow, and maximixing the potential of the little MTR taught many riders the key components of maintaining momentum and making smooth, controlled movements.

From the seller:
This is the second time this has been listed and found out a few things about this bike from a keen eyed ebayer. There is a lot of aftermarket high dollar upgrades on this. The pipe, gas tank, brake rotors ect. This is a 1975 Honda Elsinore 125cc factory road racer. This is as Rare as they come, this is in excellent condition. It has matching engine and frame #’s. Here is a little history of what i know about it. I talked to the original owner (dealer) who had the bike in the 70’s, he wasnt sure if it was in 1974 or 75. But he had a couple of them and he couldnt remember if it was sold or a bike he sponsered. But being that his shop’s name was on the fairing he would tend to think it was a sponsered rider. I bought it off of a person who had bought it out of a garage in west virginia 27yrs ago. He never rode it only started it. He kept it in a climate controlled warehouse on a shelf where it was still sitting when i bought it. This thing is almost like new, there are no major dents or scratches on the tank. The fairing is all intack without any breaks or cracks that i can see. The rear tail seat section is not original and has been changed and is scratched. The shifter is stock but the toe piece has been broke off and replaced with a bolt. The pipe looks near perfect with no flat spots or major dents. The gas tank is aluminium and near perfect. The frame is nice and straight, the forks have no rust or pitting. I can not find one piece of rust anywhere on this bike. I have not started this but I have got it to spark and it seems like it has good compression. i believe this is a 6 speed and it seems to shift thru all the gears fine. They added a tach but it is broke off and was told it got broke when the person i bought it off of was loading it 27yrs ago by turning the handle bars to far. The rims are perfect with no dents, cracks or rust. This is absolutely beautiful and would make a great addition to a collection or in a musem or as a vintage ahrma racer. This comes with 2 extra cylinders, 1 ported and polished and 1 stock.

Unlike many of the beautifully restored MTRs we have seen, this one is a racer and a survivor. Sure, there are some scuffs, scratches and damage on the panels, but there is also the knowledge that this bike has run in anger on racetracks across the country. There are also some spares – some modified and some stock – that are usually not included with a perfectly restored bike. For me, I’ll take the authentic racer any day of the week!

There are a few discrepencies with this particular ad. The listing shows the bike both as a 1974 AND a 1975, however the MTR was not officially introduced until 1976. It could be that the engine dates the bike back to that age (the Elsinore motor was introduced in 1973), but the factory roadracers were not made available until 1976. Be that as it may, this is still a relatively rare, and undeniably cool piece of motorcycling history. The best part is that you can actually ride it in vintage events!

This auction is going on right now. The opening bid is set at $3,900. While the original bike only sold for $2,000 new, we have seen the prices on these models going up in recent years. Considering the history and the spares, the price is not really out of line at all. For more pictures and more details from the seller, be sure and . These are great little bikes from a time you could purchase a real race bike at your local Honda dealer. Enjoy, and tell ’em you saw it on CSBFS!

MI