Japanese auction house Bingo and Yahoo! Auctions Japan jointly sold the most valuable Japanese motorcycle in auction history on October 31 when a near-perfect 2016 Honda RC213V-S sold for ¥27,100,000 (US$237,700), eclipsing the previous record held by a one-of-four (two extant) 1968 Honda CB750 prototype that fetched £157,500 (US$221,600) at British auction house H&H in 2018.
The sale of the RC213V-S for US$237,700 bodes well for the increased value of all collectible Japanese motorcycles because it’s just six years since the bikes were available new for $184,000 with the race kit costing an extra $12,000, for an all-up new price of $196,000 – the bike sold on Sunday had just 161 kilometers on the odometer, and the unfitted $12,000 race kit in the original Honda parts boxes.
Indeed, the RC213V-S is still so closely related to the squillion dollar factory bikes which Marc Marquez and Pol Espargaro ride in MotoGP, that when Marc Marquez was recovering from injury in March 2021, and wanted to test himself to see if he could still ride near the limit, he tested on an RC213V-S.
Because MotoGP is a ridiculously expensive sport, the governing FIM body has limited the amount of testing that can be done on genuine MotoGP bikes, so Marquez was given a race-kitted RC213V-S for a few days at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Honda's MotoGP replica is appreciating rapidly in value due to the laws of supply and demand. The demand is because the bike is such a weapon that we may never see its like again. The supply is due to the extremely limited production. Just 213 of the bikes were made available to the public – the shortest production run the Japanese giant has ever had for a commercial product. Our original stories on the bike with much more detail can be found here, here and here.
Ducati’s Desmosedici RR is only just surpassing its original buy price
By comparison , the only other convincing MotoGP replica from the four-stroke era, the Ducati Desmosedici RR was sold from 2007 to 2009, and 1500 units were ultimately delivered at around $72,500 each, with the price varying slightly depending on which country you lived in. The 989cc L-four twin-pulse Desmosedici was announced in June 2006 and first seen in action at World Ducati Week in July 2007. It was derived directly from the factory Ducati MotoGP GP6 racer, complete with gear-driven double overhead camshaft desmodromic valve gear with four titanium valves per cylinder.
The United States received just 300 units, which will most certainly make this bike a very valuable collector machine at some point in the future, but 14 years after the first bikes were delivered to customers, there are still only two people on Planet Earth to have made a profit from a Desmosedici.
That’s right, only two of the 1500 Desmosedici RR MotoGP replicas sold more than a decade ago have exceeded that initial $72,500 purchase price.
The record price paid for a Ducati Desmosedici RR is $85,600 ($80,000 plus 7 percent Buyer’s Premium), which was achieved by Iconic Motorbike Auctions in April 2020. The Desmosedici in question wasn’t just a particularly tidy example though – it was completely untouched, with just 1 kilometer on the dial and the entire race kit in the original boxes.
Only one other Desmosedici RR has exceeded that $72,500 purchase price and that was achieved in 2017 at Bonhams’ Les Grandes Marques du Monde au Grand Palais sale at Retromobile in 2017 when another unridden machine (well, it had 6 kilometers on the clock), complete with all books and tools, data analyzer, battery charger etc., sold for €70,150 ($74,749).
The next most expensive Ducati Desmosedici RR sold for £51,750 (US$62,875) at a H&H auction at the National Motorcycle Museum in 2019. Illustrative of just what happens to a motorcycle such as this when you ride it, the bike is the third most expensive Desmosedici ever sold, yet it had been ridden 940 miles from new at a cost of around $10 a mile in depreciation. A lot of Desmosedicis that have travelled considerable distances and been used as normal motorcycles have depreciated much more at auction, and they regularly still sell below the original price..
Does the Bat Pod count?
Just before the reader comments light up, there is a motorcycle that uses a 786 cc liquid-cooled V-4 Honda motor that has sold for much more than Honda’s RC213V-S MotoGP replica, but we can’t really call it a Japanese motorcycle because it’s Batman’s Bat Pod from the 2012 movie The Dark Knight Rises, directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale as Batman and Anne Hathaway as Catwoman. Both Batman and Catwoman got to ride the Bat Pod in the movie, producing some spectacular imagery, and the bike went to auction at Propstore in the United Kingdom where it sold for £319,800 (US$415,820).
While the motor of a custom motorcycle generally determines its country of origin, the nationality of motorcycle companies is becoming more fluid by the day with once fiercely nationalistic brands such as Norton and Husqvarna being owned by companies located in the most unlikely places, while just about every motorcycle marque on the planet manufactures a goodly part of its inventory in China, India or Thailand. Bimotas are generally classified as Italian regardless of where the motor is made, so for the purposes of assigning a nationality to the Batpod, it seems appropriate to claim it as "Made in the U.S.A." given it was designed and built in the United States for the guardian of Gotham City.
For the sake of completion and understanding this emerging collectible marketplace, the other motorcycles in the top 10 most expensive Japanese motorcycles at auction are as follows:
2 | $221,561 | £157,500 | 1968 Honda CB750 Prototype
Date of sale: 3 April 2018
Auction House: H&H
Production numbers: four were made, two are extant
Auction Link
In late 1968, Honda built four CB750 prototypes and until this auction, only one of the original prototypes had ever been identified. Now there are two, and it isn't beyond the realm of possibility that another may surface, though we'd assign a probability of less than one percent. In today's auction climate, with the value of original prototypes for a genre of any significant object now established, if this bike were to go to auction again, it might fetch a million dollars. It is one of the two originals left of perhaps the most significant motorcycle in history.
3 | $181,500 | 1992 Honda NR750 Type RC40
Date of sale: 25 January 2019
Auction House: Mecum
Production numbers: 322 units
Auction Link
The Honda NR750 Type RC40 was an instant collectible from the time it was announced. Manufacturers still boast of four-valves per cylinder, but Honda's RC40 has eight valves per cylinder and elliptical-shaped pistons and a wonderful back story. Whatsmore it started out frightfully expensive and was only ever produced in extremely limited quantities.
4 | $190,800 | 1962 Honda CR72 250cc Racing Motorcycle
Date of sale: 8 January 2009
Auction House: Mid-America (now Mecum)
Production numbers: unknown, but believed to be less than 50
Auction Link: no longer exists
In Honda nomenclature, “CR” stands for "Customer Racer" and back in the early 1960s, Honda launched a two-pronged attack on public awareness by building a handful of Grand Prix bikes that won them world championships, and invariably got returned to Japan, plus very limited numbers of customer racers that were sold to the best racers across America and Europe so they could dominate the podiums in front of the sporting public. These CR bikes were sold in 50cc (CR110), 125cc (CR93), 250cc (CR72) and 305cc (CR77) road racing versions and many of them appear in our auction database having fetched quite remarkable prices.
The price record for a Honda CR110 50cc racer was set at $66,000 just a few months ago in Monterey by Mecum and the CR93 125cc racer has been selling at around $50,000 for a decade with the record of £41,625 ($63,370) set by H&H on 13 October 2015.
By far the rarest and most sought-after is the 250cc CR72 which dominated club racing in Europe and America until the first TD1 Yamahas showed up in late 1962. With two CR72 motorcycles in the 10 most expensive Japanese motorcycles of all-time, the reverence with which this motorcycle is held is obvious.
This article about the Honda CR72 written for the October 1974 edition of Cycle Magazine by tech guru Kevin Cameron offers some insights.
5 | $148,100 | 1968 Honda CB750 Prototype
Date of sale: 10 February 2014
Auction House: eBay
Production numbers: four were made, two are extant
Auction Link: no longer exists
Sold on eBay on 10 February 2014 for $148,100, this 1969 Honda CB750 was the highest priced Japanese bike sold at auction for several years, and the first really high priced motorcycle sold over the internet. It is one of the original four prototype Honda CB750s built in late 1968 and one of just two known to survive. Indeed, none of the parts of a 1969 K0 CB750 will fit this bike – it really was a prototype.
6 | $126,260 | 1992 Honda NR750 Type RC40
Date of sale: 17 June 2020
Auction House: Iconic Motorbike Auctions
Production numbers: 322 units
Auction Link
7 | $121,000 | 1988 Honda VFR750R Type RC30
Date of sale: 25 January 2019
Auction House: Mecum
Production numbers: 3000 units
Auction Link
The Honda VFR750R, better known as the RC30, was created to win the World Superbike Championship, a feat it achieved in the first two seasons of the series in 1988 and 1989. At the time of its release, the Honda RC30 cost almost twice the price of any other sports bike.
8 | $117,482 | £ 89,700 | 1963 Honda CR72 250cc Racing Motorcycle
Date of sale: 16 August 2020
Auction House: Bonhams
Production numbers: unknown, but believed to be less than 50
Auction Link
9 | $106,144 | 1994 Honda RVF750R Type RC45
Date of sale: 5 February 2021
Auction House: Iconic Motorbike Auctions
Production numbers: 200 units in 1994 plus a small number (10-15 units) for factory teams over subsequent years
Auction Link
Like the RC30 before it, the RC45 was a homologation special designed to give Honda's race teams what they needed to win the World Superbike Championship. The RC45 obliged with one title compared to the RC30's two titles, but it has all the unobtanium internals and the rarity to become an auction block superstar.
Sold by Iconic Motorbike Auctions, this 1994 Honda RVF750R (also known as Type RC45) was sold with no miles (that's right - absolute zero) on the odometer in February 201, fetching $106,144 and becoming the most valuable RVF750R sold to date. There will be more, as this bike is both rare and technologically precocious. There's an exceptional road test on this bike on Cycle News and the above video is part of that road test.
10 | $101,750 | 1992 Honda NR750 Type RC40
Date of sale: 25 January 2020
Auction House: Mecum
Production numbers: 322 units
Auction Link
Another of Honda's oval piston masterpieces. With only 300 ever made, it isn't surprising that three of these bikes are in the top 10 most valuable Japanese motorcycles ever sold at auction. A decade from now, our prediction is that the entire top 10 will be comprised of Honda RC213V-S and Honda NR750 motorcycles. The supply of both bikes is far more limited than any other desirable Honda model, and both are technologically beyond any other road bikes ever offered for sale by Honda.
Break the cycle.