He's an eccentric motorcycle and engine building genius who regularly creates mind-bending engineering alchemy and has millions of fans... So why is his extraordinary work so badly undervalued at auction? Someone's getting a bargain today.
Maurits Cornelis "M.C." Escher (1898-1972) was neglected by the art world for most of his life, even in his native Netherlands. He was 70 before a retrospective exhibition made the world sit up and take notice, and like so many artists before him, his greatest triumphs and global recognition came after his earthly demise.
There are many parallels between the work of the now globally-celebrated MC Escher and that of Britain’s eccentric engineering genius, Allen Millyard, the most obvious being the cerebral backward somersault they induce, and the most remarkable being the lack of demand for their artworks during their lifetime.
Millyard's bikes sell at auction for less than good standard examples of the bikes they mimic.
One of Millyard's Escher-esque rolling sculptures is going to auction this week at the Mecum Las Vegas auction, the biggest motorcycle auction held each year on Planet Earth, and the price expectations are ridiculously modest.
Somer Hooker is in Vegas and he took these pics this morning showing the bike awaiting a new custodian. It doesn't look much different to the 750cc two-stroke triple "widowmaker" upon which it is based - it just has an extra cylinder, bringing it up to a full liter of displacement.
Millyard's mech-maniacal artworks have become a major attraction in their own right over the last 25 years, drawing crowds and dropping jaws at bike shows, concours events and motorcycle museums.
The world's most respected motorcycle historians and writers write about his creations with undisguised adoration, there's not a motorcycle magazine in the world that hasn't featured his bikes, and several of his most famous moving sculptures now feature in the world-renowned Barber Motorcycle Museum - that's in America, not in his home of the United Kingdom.
Allen's regularly-performed alchemy has also seen him rise to become an insanely popular media personality in his own right. Authentic, well-communicated knowledge of this caliber is hard to come by, and he has it in abundance. He's now writing a monthly feature for the world's oldest motorcycle magazine (Motorcycle News - UK). His YouTube channel has 285,000 subscribers ... And you can see the popularity of his videos in the image above.
You'd think that when his work became available at auction, it would be near priceless, but not so.
The most expensive Millyard creation ever sold at public auction is an 850cc five-cylinder Kawasaki KH 500 "KH Five" that fetched USD $56,754 (GBP £47,150 inc. BP) at H&H Auctions in 2022.
Now that $56,750 price tag makes it more expensive than any standard Kawasaki two-stroke triple that has sold at auction (but only just), and the price is an outlier for the Millyard breed, and it's our contention that it is being judged in the wrong category, and according to the laws of auction prices, should have extra few zeroes on the end.
We can only find three other Millyard machines that have ever sold at auction – plus one that didn't –and the prospects of being able to actually own a Millyard masterpiece take on a distinctly hopeful glow when you run through them.
The second-most valuable Millyard Masterpiece ever sold at auction was a 1972 Kawasaki H2 750-based 1000cc four-cylinder quite similar to the bike going to auction this week. That is, it began life as a 750cc triple, and then Millyard gave it an extra cylinder to raise it to 1000cc.
The bike sold for USD $40,584 (GBP £29,250) on 13 August 2021 and the above video offers some insight into how it was made. Having spent a bit of time on both 750cc H2 (as a motorcycle magazine road tester) and 500cc H1 Kawasaki triples (I owned one once), the concept of a 1000cc four-cylinder two-stroke conjures equal parts excitement and terror.
Performance two-strokes are an acquired taste. Once you've experienced that obscene rush of power, you're prepared to accept more than a few glaring faults – so there's a part of me rejoicing that someone built something this batsh#t crazy.
But large-capacity two-strokes on the road aren't referred to as 'widowmakers' for nothing – they bite, and they can bite hard! Allen didn't mess with the port-timings when he added these extra cylinders, so however psychotic the original 750cc widowmaker was, this Millyard widowmaker is likely 33% moreso.
If you're thinking that $40K seems too cheap for a bespoke, four-cylinder, 1000cc two-stroke motorcycle, an almost identical bike went to auction at H&H auctions on 15 November 2023 with an estimate of USD $37,500 to $42,500 (GBP £30,000 to £34,000) ... And failed even to reach the reserve price. No-one wanted it at $37,500!
Another Millyard Special, in the form of a 1976 Kawasaki KH500-based 666cc four-cylinder motorcycle, sold for $36,328 (GBP £31,750) on 16 September 2022, and a 1978 Kawasaki KH400-based 666cc five-cylinder sold for $27,465 (GBP £22,250) on 3 December 2022, well below the "£25,000 to £30,000" estimate.
British motorcycle broker and investment analyst Paul Jayson sold a 1000cc four "off market" in 2020 for an undisclosed amount and he has another for sale at an undisclosed price right now - Jayson also believes Millyard's creations are more art than motorcycle and have a big "upside."
Compare this with a list of all the H2 & H1 Kawasaki sales that we compiled following the 2024 Mecum Las Vegas Auction. This article created a massive intrigue, and is entitled, Who is buying all the Kawasaki Mach IV Widowmakers?
The dance between supply and demand happens continuously in the auction world, and when the prices achieved by a relatively common object suddenly spike, there are predictable consequences. In the ensuing year, many "hidden" examples are enticed to auction by the prospect of the recent high prices, and soon there's an oversupply – or the value of the object is recalibrated.
This week will see the plot unfold as to what happens next.
This will be the first time a Millyard Masterpiece hits the auction block in America, and the first time we've seen one at one of Mecum's mega-auctions.
Indeed, there's been an avalanche of standard widowmakers prepared for this week's Mecum auction. You can see some of the better examples - here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and if you're feeling really brave, here.
Millyard's four-cylinder Kawasaki 1000cc is heading to auction on the biggest stage, against a battalion of originals, and it doesn't even make the featured attractions listing for the auction. Based on data-based price expectations, the Millyard isn't even among the top 300 bikes at this auction – although to be fair, the 2000+ motorcycles on offer include some impressive specimens.
Millyard is unquestionably a sculptor, but the perceptual problems associated with creating artworks that function as advertised, means the inevitable "genius" tag in any description is prefixed with "engineering."
Allen's biggest problems are that his artworks actually work, and his execution is so staggeringly perfect that even his most outrageous Frankenstein engines could easily pass for stock at a glance.
He doesn't rely on digital tools to manifest his sculptures - his one-car garage is little better than that of most dedicated tinkerers.
He does however, have one of the most intriguing minds and most vivid imaginations going around, and he is seemingly blessed with superpowers of some form, because he can take a motorcycle into his "shed" and add in a cylinder or two, or four, or six. Sometimes he achieves this so skilfully that you’d scarcely notice – until you do, and your head snaps back to untangle the puzzle.
His ability to recreate entire engines in a different format – and make them work as well as the manufacturers could have hoped for – offers motorcycle enthusiasts the same delightful brain puzzles that Escher's artwork does ... And the "can do" attitude they all exude has a profound inspirational quality for the mechanical at heart. Never underestimate what a man with a shed can do.
Let's focus on his process for a moment.
Millyard's shed is not the modern-day industrial armory one might expect from the quality of his work.
He doesn't have access to the blueprints that defined these machines when they were designed, tested, refined to production standards, and then manufactured by the world's largest motorcycle companies with thousands of engineers and limitless technological resources.
He doesn't calculate mechanical forces, gas flows and harmonic engine balance with a supercomputer - he looks at it for a long time, thinks about it, constructs a plan in his mind, then manifests that plan, starting out by taking a hack-saw to the original engine cases.
His shed is a single-car garage, and his tools are quite literally "old school" as they were purchased from a tech institute that was being retired from the British educational system.
Indeed, he wields nothing more than a first-day apprentice might have at their disposal in the way of tools, but his imagination, uncanny feel for engineering, and depth of knowledge enable him to solve the myriad technological hurdles that pop up as part of every engine build.
Anyone who has ever rebuilt an engine without any parts left over will recognise the complexity of adding a cylinder or two to a functioning motor, much less integrating the result into a working, balanced, sweet, sorted, daily-rideable motorcycle. The number of intricate applied engineering solutions contained within each Millyard creation is almost too overwhelming for the mechanically-minded to contemplate. It's not surprising that there's never been an article written about him (at least one we can find), that doesn't include the word "genius."
Millyard's art motorcycles have been created so authentically, both in the spirit and period of the bike they were manifested from, that they all work as you'd expect if they came direct from the factory of the badge each wears!
Millyard may not have the latest scalpels, but he is quite clearly a master surgeon – even an enthusiast could easily walk past one of his bikes without realising there was an extra cylinder that had no right to be there.
Each one is finished to production quality. This is not illusion - it is sheer artistry of a quality you'd be hard-pressed to find elsewhere, on many levels.
Each of his machines is a beloved and well-recognised piece of rolling artwork, so authentic in its execution, that it might easily have come directly from the factory.
As can be seen from the above Velocette V-twin, Allen's execution is astonishingly authentic, even when he's working with materials half a century removed from those he is best associated with. As he told the Vintagent, "I like to think of it as the bike Velocette should have made for the 1939 Earls Court Show."
The diversity of the sculptures that have come to life in Allen's garage span the entire gamut – but the most exquisite to date in our opinion is the Flying Millyard, a brass-era motorcycle he imagined when he found two pots on sale from a Pratt & Whitney nine-cylinder radial R-985 Wasp aircraft engine.
He bought them, cast his own engine cases, building or acquiring the rest of the engine, gearbox, frame, suspension and the bike in sympathy with the period. The bike is massive, framed around those glorious cylinders, and as the world's largest v-twin motorcycle, it's a kinetic experience for all those within earshot.
Yes, it's a motorcycle worshiped by two-wheeled disciples, but in a wider context, it is a vastly under-appreciated rolling sculpture.
Veteran motorcycle scribe Roland Brown rode the Flying Millyard a few years back, and the story is well told.
Sometimes, Allen just starts with an engine.
In conclusion
Allen Millyard's star as an artist has not yet fully risen. The retired nuclear physicist might well be the ultimate "man with a shed", but he's a grossly under-appreciated phenomenon at auction. This is the first time one of his performance-art-sculptures has been to auction on the other side of the pond, in the world's biggest marketplace.
This auction will be streamed live on Youtube on 31 January 2025. I view it as a piece of scheduled real-time intrigue - a reality sporting contest with an outcome every four minutes.
Finally, if the thought of a 1,000cc two-stroke road bike rings your bells, Millyard didn't stop at four cylinders... There's a five-cylinder, 1,250cc H2 out there somewhere, ready to manufacture a whole slew of fresh widows.
Source: Mecum Auctions / Allen Millyard