Motorcycle & Powersports News May 2011 : Page 32
Glenn Bator poses with his immaculate 1957 Harley Sportster. to know what your neighbors are riding,” says O’Hanlon. “Last, and most importantly from a business owner’s standpoint, if there is a swap meet with the show, you can see who is buying and how much they are willing to spend. Even if a bike is popu-lar, if the owners will not spend any money on it, there is no reason for you to get in-volved. For example, there is a moped store across the street from my shop. The owners won’t do repairs, although there is a real need, because the kids that own mopeds re-fuse to spend any money on keeping them up.” You don’t need to do all the work of putting on a show yourself. Approach the local vintage bike clubs: for exam-ple, the Antique Motorcycle Club of America, [www.an-tiquemotorcycle.org] the Classic Japanese Motorcycle Club [www.CJMC.org], the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club [www.vjmc.org], the Cushman Club [www.cushmanclubo-famerica.com ] or the Kawasaki Triple club [www.naktc.com ]. The clubs should do most of the organizing and advertising. Ask the Boy Scouts or the Lions Club to sell hot dogs and drinks and have an area reserved for the swap meet. Chad Thompson endorses the vintage show idea but also suggests checking out what types of old bikes show up at Bike Nights. If you go to the races, there are often vintage classes. These venues can give you an idea of the classic bikes that are popular in your community. Order Parts You can extend the good will and interest gained from your vintage show by learning what parts are available for locally popular vintage bikes and special ordering them for cus-tomers. “There’s a lot of retail calling Sudco because dealers turn away those customers,” says Chad Thompson. “If it’s not on microfiche, many parts departments do not want to know about it. They are alien-ating themselves from the customer’s dollar. Both Sudco and K&L can get you many parts for a wide variety of vin-tage motorcycles.” O’Hanlon suggests keeping an eye on the special orders. “Do you have two or three guys coming in for the same parts for the same older bike? There may be an opportunity there.” “Vintage bikes are here for a reason,” says John Betten-court. “People have kept them that long because they really like that bike. If you are able to take care of a vintage bike that a customer loves, you will have a customer for life — actually a lot of customers. The enthusi-ast community will get the word out about a shop that can help.” O’Hanlon explains how he started his current business. “I used to work on anything old. Then, someone brought me a Superhawk. I got it run-ning well. The customer told me that no one would work on it, and he had friends with old Hondas. Next thing I knew, people were bringing me Dreams and 160s. I had cus-tomers I liked and bikes I liked to work on. I had a whole new business model.” Thompson points out that if an old bike owner gets in the habit of going to your shop for parts, chances are they will buy oil, chains, tires, gloves, helmets and jackets there in-stead of on the Internet. You are also making an invest-ment in the future. “A kid may have no money now, but in five or six years, he may have graduated college and gotten a job. He may want to have something to ride while he works on his vintage bike.” Selling Vintage “Right now new bike sales are terrible,” says Glenn Bator, owner of Bator International, a vintage bike brokerage and auction house. “The most money you can make on a mo-torcycle today is on a used bike. Used motorcycles for sale are drying up — people are not buying new. A new bike has an MSRP. On a vin-tage motorcycle, you can name your own price. A mo-torcycle dealer I know is get-ting into vintage, he is making more money on the used bikes and the vintage bikes than he is on the new bikes.” Servicing Vintage While displaying vintage mo-torcycles, offering your park-ing lot for a show, and ordering parts for customers involves little risk, working on vintage bikes can be problem-atic. “Encourage a young me-chanic who is interested in ac-tually learning about 32 May 2011 motorcycleproductnews.com
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