It looked a little dodgy at first, forty years of no history at all; no tax records, no MoT certificates, no intervening service history....
But when you take a close look at the footrest and pedal rubbers, seat, grip rubbers, stickers under the seat etc. etc. and put that with the little verbal history it has and the HPI and DVLA records, it seemed like a genuine bike. Buying a bike from 'Lotus in Norwich' seemed odd at first till I realised he meant Norfolk Motor Company, then a Lotus and Alfa dealer.
Anyway, my Honda sat in a mate's garage for 22 years (and how I wish I had been clever enough to drain the tank and carbs and fill 'em with diesel, pure genious!) and that was a genuine 8,000 miler, so they are out there.
I have a photo of the bike with the original rotted exhaust system on, so that bit was also genuine.
RS prices on t'internet have been going silly for a few years now and I was too late to catch a really nice black one a few weeks back and then this one came up.
I wasn't going to bother to bid when the price got to £4,600 with a couple of hours to go (I don't know why folks bother? I never bid till the last few seconds on anything!). I was watching the Russian Grand Prix on the recorder when my phone alarm went off to remind me to place my bid...and although I wasn't now going to bother, I checked the auction anyway.
I was amazed to find the top bid had gone back down to £3,600 and with only 15 seconds left I hastily put my bid together and hit submit with 3 seconds on the clock and was delighted to find it was mine.
It turned out the original high bidder threw a wobbly when he discovered the Lester alloys weren't included and withdrew his bid. It wasn't clear from the ad whether they were, but I had assumed they weren’t. I have since bought them for £150 (complete with original tyres) to keep the bike's provenance going. I'll never fit them as the spoked wheels are gorgeous but it keeps the story together for future owners.
Of course, there are bound to be niggles and I'm not too sure about 40 year old brake hoses. Anyone?