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Well Terry your search for an RD is over. Nice somewhat original one on eBay now. A snip at $34K. You might have to sell another bike. Or maybe the house. What were we just saying?
As soon as someone puts a bike like the RB1 up at a fanciful price, it brings the dreamers out. The same seller also has a nice example of an RZ500 up for $25K. I’m more familiar with the prices of these. It’s a $15K bike, as he’ll discover in the course of the auction.
Terry, I thought the Darwin RB1 actually sold for about $22K. Could be wrong. Regardless, that was a pretty nice example and perhaps a reasonable buy.
To add to your CB1100RB sales data. I recently sold my surplus faired RB with original exhaust system, around 27K km and needing a few cosmetics for $15K, and a better RZ500 than the one above for $16K. Maybe I sold them too cheap, but I thought at those prices they were fair value.
To put things in perspective, $34K will get you the best RC30 you’re likely to lay eyes on. Much as I love the CB1100Rs, they simply aren’t in the same category in terms of exotic spec, build quality or competition history. I know that might start a lively debate here!
Cheers
Brian
Wout I don’t know how many are here. A fairly good number. Quite a few faired RBs were imported over recent years, but I would guess very few recently – the AUS$ has dropped about 40% since last year! I would have said that RBs are worth more here than RCs and RDs, but there have been recent sales of good examples of the latter around the prices decent RBs seem to fetch. Who knows where the prices are going. I certainly don’t. Most likely up because of the cost of imports? These bikes don’t change hands very often, so it’s not easy to find a good one if you go looking. Cheers Brian
Yes I’ll ask Pete when I see him if he’ll do something on the RB. He lives up at Umina now. Both he and his wife have had a few health issues in recent years. He has been maintaining my historic race engines for many years – including the Repco Type 740 F1 engine in my ex- Brabham BT24. By far the best race engine guy I ever met. Has forgotten more than I’ll ever know! He has an interesting view on the CB1100 engine – describes it as having a “soft top end” whatever that means. But generally a positive opinion of it. Unusual for him. He has done some recent consulting work for Aprilia and describes their engines as a “piece of shit”! He tells some hair raising stories about how they switched cams and changed the internals on the Castrol bikes. It really should be documented, but even today would embarrass quite a few people I dare say. He’s been coming down to Broadford with us the last couple of years – really enjoys that.
It’s interesting that the production total for all RBs is 1050. That certainly sounds right. The comment about a few more than 100 coming in for the Castrol in 1980 came from Pete. He reckons some of them had frame numbers well over 100. Makes sense if some were going elsewhere (eg UK).
Some of you guys obviously have a beter grasp of the numbers than I do. But we all agree these are bloody great bikes in any form. I bought a very clean VF1000R a few years ago. Was severely disappointed. Sold it off pretty quickly. Maybe I’m biased, but I don’t think Honda matched the RB until the RC30 came along.
I’m probably creating confusion by referring to the two RB versions as RB0 and RB1. This is fairly common now, but I think the factory actually called them RB-I and RB-II in the literature. Cheers Brian
Yes I think those production numbers are probably right.
I don’t know a sure fire way to tell if a bike started life as what is now called an RB0 (no fairing) because an RB1 can easily be made to look like one with mostly CB900 bits. Honda obviously raided the parts bin when they found they needed unfaired bikes for the Castrol. I have an RB0 which Honda sent to Germany in early 1981 – with higher numbers (I’m not at home and can’t recal right now). The only reason I know the history is it was registered by Honda themselves and they obtained type approval for it there – as distinct from the RB1 which was already on sale. I have all the paperwork. They were considering marketing the RB0 as a distinct model – maybe as a result of the Castrol victory? – but never did. They sold it on to a private owner there in late 1985.
This may well have happened elsewhere, and as stated earlier it was possible to buy an RB in RB0 configuration for quite a while after the first Australian shipment was built.
Having one with numbers well under 100, and an Australian compliance plate, would make it a pretty safe bet. Other than that, I guess the only sure fire way would be if original documentation exists to prove the configuration. You’d think that anybody who raced one would have seriously looked at using it unfaired. The aerodynamics of the half fairing are decidedly iffy from personal experience. You’d need to be a Joey Dunlop to get away with it at TT speeds!
This is a very interesting discussion. No doubt there are others who can throw some light on the subject.
Has anybody compiled a list of known RB0 frame numbers?
According to Pete Molloy – who prepared Wayne Gardners Mentor Mortors bike for the Castrol – a few more than 100 originally came to Aus in the RB0 configuration in the lead up to the Castrol. Conventional wisdom is that just over 1000 RB of all types were manufactured by Honda. I don’t know where this figure came from, but it’s widely quoted.
Greg
Yes I live at Lavender Bay usually – but currently at my other home in China until end September. Obviously too much time on my hands here if I’m watching stuff on eBay!
JohnS (below) traveled down to see this RB. He found that it has a compliance plate and the numbers look kosher, but mileage is unknown and it appears to have been rebuilt – perhaps after hitting the hard stuff somewhere? Not that mileage is much of an issue with these! It’s apparently been sold after the auction – my guess something approaching $30K.
I wonder if anyone has run a VIN check on it. It’s odd that the numbers were not mentioned in the auction blurb and there was nothing about the compliance plate. Apparently it’s been unregistered for years.
Do you live in or near Sydney?
Cheers
Brian
