Looking for a little help...

Hey everybody, I'm just new here but have been a long time bike guy. So...here's my dilemma. I have a neighbor/friend that is down on his luck a bit (wife real sick) and he has a 1975 KZ900 that he bought new, put 20k on it and parked it 20+years ago. (not stored properly either) A few years ago, I got it running for him as a surprize (from his wife and son) and then mothballed it for him with the agreement that i would finish the restoration when he was in a better spot money wise to do it. Well...I don't think that it is goingto work out that way. It is pretty well stock and all there. Not rusted ,paint a bit faded and missing the front fender and front signals. It has a Yoshimura 4-1 chrome pipe on it as well.

I ran into a guy last week who restores them and sells bikes like that overseas for big money. He wants to buy it.

I would like some opinions of what you guys think would be a fair asking price for something like that.
We are in Nova Scotia.
Thanks in advance for your input...

images would help....

Excellent shape, OEM paint, low mileage probably somewhere $3K and up...

Yeah i know, It's at his house right now. I'm just starting to gather a little info...thanks tho.

do you have permission to sell your friends bike?

That is a Z1, the price is gonna be a lot higher than a KZ especially if its in great condition

guy's like that won't pay shit for bikes they have to make money on them on the other end so it won't matter what the bike is worth you will get pennies on the dollar for it from an exporter. exporters clean us out about 15 years ago and now it sounds like they are doing it again. if it is a runner then it's worth at least 2000.00 and up for a z1. don't take any less. an exporter has to figure in the inital cost of the bike storage until he get's a full container load cost of shipping the container traveling money while he is hunting down the bikes and how much he would have to do to them to make them saleable on the other end so you can see he won't and can't pay very much for them up front.

kawsakiman wrote:

do you have permission to sell your friends bike?

I'm helping him...not selling it without his knowledge. Do you have something usefull to add?

Sell it locally and you'll get more money, plus, we can't afford to keep losing the big, early KZs to these exporters. I was approched years ago to sell my bike by one of these guys. I told him to go suck canal water, my bike was staying in Canada! lol

DBL.Agent wrote:

kawsakiman wrote:

do you have permission to sell your friends bike?

I'm helping him...not selling it without his knowledge. Do you have something usefull to add?

To be fair, you didn't say that anywhere.


As far as price, if it is a Z1 opinions on price and value will vary not only from person to person but from area to area as well. For example, I paid ~$1200 for my non running '74 basketcase that was parked in '96 in Edmonton and it wasn't a bad price but I also just picked up a fairly original, nice running '75 Z1 from the second owner for ~$1500 in Regina. The truth is that its worth as much as someone will pay for it. I wouldn't recommend selling to the exporter guy unless he was offering $1500 or up but its up to you and your friend.

If you are going to try and advertise locally online I would recommend paying to have your ad stay on the front page if that is an option with the site you're using. I didn't for awhile and kept letting my ads get farther and farther back until I realized the only people I was getting interest from were the cheap bastards like me who go through all the ads to try and find a steal :woohoo: