78 Z1R upgrades

redhawk4 wrote: As I said originally I would have bought yours in a heartbeat at the price you paid and for more money too I wouldn't rule out buying one if the opportunity arose, although if I'm going to the "square look" I'd more likely go with the GPz ELR later model, but it all depends on price.and what you get lucky with.

The Z1R's are nice bikes, I just feel there are some who are mistakenly jacking up the values without understanding the bike's history and like wise buyers who are being drawn in by misinterpreting the perceived rarity too. .

I thought that about the one on ebay and whether that was a real bid. Unbelievable to think the reserve could be higher. It could also be a case of the asking price being related to how much was spent restoring it, as opposed to real world value.

I was actually looking at an ad for gpz1100 only to discover it had sold when I clicked on the details portion of the ad. When I clicked back, the Z1R was their,( it hadn't been before) that was how I was first to get ahold of the owner.....just luck.

As far as the value goes, I suppose it's supply and demand, and desirability that drive value. While the Z1R is Rare being a 1 year only bike, (D1) I would agree with you, that they are perceived to be more rare than they are. I don't think 17500 units is a particularly low number. That being said, the PO told me when I picked up the bike that he had 27 emails, and about the same amount of calls over 12 hours before he took the ad down. Maybe that's why the rarity, you don't see them come for sale very often, and when they do its a feeding frenzy.

The EBay bike buy it now price is comical at 24,500...I feel sorry for anyone that mistakenly thinks cost of restoration has anything to do with real world value..lol :lol: I wish it was true! My H1E would be worth about $10000.

Cheers

I think the rarity is more related to the number of examples that have survived in stock condition rather than the number originally made. So many of them, like most KZ models, were modified that finding a nice original stock bike in good shape is very difficult. So even though there may have been thousands of them produced there are probably less than 100 still in great original condition.

I know for sure this is the case with my blue KZ650-C1. Over the past 10 years I have only seen 1 (other than my own) on the internet that was truly original, and that one was a rare beauty with extremely low miles that had been stored at a dealership for many years.

This is main reason i find it disappointing when I see someone modify a nice original example of any KZ model is that once it has been modified it will never be put back into original condition. As an analogy, consider finding a totally original 1957 Chevy. They were very common in their day and there were many thousands of them made, but only a tiny percentage of them still survive in original condition, and they can now fetch more than $100,000. Ed