[Steve G.]

* unfriend *

15 years ago a bunch of us were looking at a DN-01 at a dealership in Mt. Vernon. The sales manager walked up to us and stated " Know what DN-01 stands for? Do Not Own One" .
Clearly one of the ugliest bikes in world history. Suzuki Madura territory.

 

[Steve G.]

I’ve loved the RC series of WSB homologation street bikes from Honda, all from the racing passion of Mr. Honda directly. The RC51 is epic legend in my mind. Completely changing programs to V twin from V4 to prove WSB rules favoured Ducati, only to quit WSB after winning outright WSB on the twin, and of course winning 1st 2 yrs of WSB with RC30. The RC51 will follow the same level of collectibility as the RC30 and RC45 values, perhaps a bit less only because production numbers are quite a bit more than the V4 superbikes.

 

[Steve G.]

Unfortunately for the RC51 there are simply way too many of them out there for them to truly be a collectible, with maybe the exception of early 2000 models and the 2004 Hayden model. But they are at the point where a really clean example that has some nice add-ons and is unmolested in terms of body panels - full undertail fender and no frame slider holes cut in the fairings - can fetch close to $10K from the right buyer. Most nice examples are still only getting around $6-7K tho.

Agreed. Unmolested Hayden’s, because of Nicky’s unfortunate early ‘departure’, and the super rare US issue only Castro Colin Edwards replica are the ones to go for. Later grey colour model sp2 are better bikes all round, but never will be sought after by collectors.

 

[Steve G.]

No such thing.

Actually, I think you are correct. I stand corrected.

 

[Steve G.]

I've heard that at various times too and it seems plausible. I think there's been one person who made a road legal rep of the Edwards bike using HRC parts, including the swingarm. Cool idea, but fuck that would be expensive for just a road bike.

I saw 2 of them at Laguna Seca 15 yrs ago, lovely to look at.