In Asia you have a whole different market: cheap reliable easy to handle bikes like the Dream and the Wave are a real hit. Remember these guys are small so wifey can drive, baby (sometimes two) sits behind, and hubby brings up the back. As HJ points out, these are rapidly taking over from the ubiquitous pushbike in Asia.
Licensing is pretty iffy so nobody bothers much, and the basket on the front (back) is great for going to the market for shopping. Maintenance is practically zero and these things will go on indefinitely. I used to go to Taipei in Taiwan a lot where small bikes and scooters are plentiful and often you could count up to 70 or 80 of these ahead of you at a red light. Girls like them because they're chic and easy to handle.
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Thanks all for some interesting stuff. Although I never had a '90' I feel sad it's gone. It was a true icon and has helped millions on their way to work as well as thousands doing their taxi 'knowledge' in London. Some have travelled the world on them and I have seen articles about bods buying brand new ones and immediately doing the John O'Groats to Lands end run on them.
When I was at school I yearned for a BSA Bantam 175cc. As soon as I was 16 I wanted to buy an immaculate BSA C15 250cc for sale in CR Speed Shop in Ilford, but didn't have the £75. My parents didn't either and my relations refused the loan and so I went to a loan shark for £50 to get another C15 from a previous 'mate' for £50, I spent £50 repairing it and sold it for £50. How *not* to do it! Spent the whole of Christmas 1967 in our shed with it in bits.
KB.
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I guess you have very distinct markets. In the West buying a scoot would likely be as a convenience, something secondary to primary transport.
In the East, people are being sold "up" to a Wave or similar (there are heaps of different brands, Korean, Taiwanese, Chinese) as primary transport for a small family. Some of myneighbours even keep one for the maid or the family driver to putter down to the shops or to pay the household bills. Kids of 10 or 12 riding them around the sub-division as well.
It would ruin my bad-ass rep to be seen on one (!) so I have trail bike for local stuff, but I can see the advantages.
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Funny world. I had a C15 for a while, after I sold off an RD250 Yam (god only knows why, must have been 1974/5. What a total pile of crud. I can't think that I ever managed to get the 30 miles to college and back again with out something falling off or breaking. By the way if anyone know of the location of a Candy Blue Yamaha RD250 XFY 852 M I would be willing to buy it!
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THe C15's were junk. I used to worked a BSA dealership and after the boring but old 250's and the B31 which propelled hundreds of chaps in long overcoats, berets and goggles to work, the unit engine gearbox models, including the A50 and the A65 were hopeless under-engineered. If Lucas electrics were often christened "THe Prince Of Darkness" ("King of The Road" was their official slogan) I hate to think about Wipac. Us guys used to play skipjack with the dozens of faulty alternator stators we used to collect under warranty.
But the BSA Lemon Award must go the B40. This was a 350 similar to the C15. BSA sold hundreds to the AA for patrol use and they were hopeless. We used to joke that the AA was its own biggest breakdown customer.
AMC were going through a similar decline at the same time with the Matchless/AJS rubbish. That was circa 1961/2. My dealership eventually fired themselves as main agents for BSA and AMC, kept Triumph and was the very first Honda dealership outside London.
Trouble was they hardly sold because nobody trusted anything from Japan ("monkey metal") and memories of WW2 atrocities were still vivid. At least two fellows I knew had been used as slave labour on the Burma railroad. It was only when they brought out their 50 cc Cub to fill the market left by the NSU Quickly that Honda started to sell.
But their bikes were something. Their 1963 125 twin would hit 70 mph in second gear. I came across a perfectly preserved one at our Bike Week last week.
tinyurl.com/axip
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Interesting point Growler makes about the resistance to Japanese vehicles, which lasted till about the end of the seventies when the number of former POW's diminished. I remember a mate and I being rudely refused petrol at a small filling station in rural Kent because I was riding a CB175, and a garage owner I worked for in the early seventies would have a blue fit if anyone asked him to service a Japanese car.
Incidently, the Honda C90 is not just the largest selling motorcycle of all time, but the largest selling vehicle of any type.
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Tangentially...this anti-Jap resistance was strangely less felt in Australia and you would have thought they of all nations had reason to be antipathetic to say the least -- after all Darwin was bombed and many Aussies perished in the Malay peninsula and on the Burma railroad.
But when I arrived in Australia in early '68, the place was teeming with Mazda's, the Prince (fore-runner to Datsun/Nissan and arguably the ugliest car ever made, the shovel front Toyota Corona and the Isuzu Bellett. All had a good rep. None of these had I ever seen in UK at that time apart from the Toyota which was sold by Pride and Clarke in S. London in very small numbers.
I think it may have been the original "gorilla" version of the Landcruiser that did the trick, that vehicle would take you anywhere and very quickly displaced the Land Rover in the bush for performance and reliability. You still see them, all a uniform beige colour, no deference paid to looks or mod cons, with a monstrous 6 cyl engine. I remember I changed a clutch on one single handed in Derby or Wyndham or somewhere in about an hour, with wife number 1 passing the wrenches and the occasional cold Swan. These were the proper Landcruisers, with no frills whatever, not the mobile juke-boxes seen nowadays.
But what sold the Jap bikes was they didn't leak oil, didn't start to fall apart the minute after leaving the showroom, came with a proper toolkit, spare plugs and even a little hat. Honda for example knew the first question anyone would ask a salesman was "what about spares then?" and my dealership had to carry as a condition of the contract a very long comprehensive list of spares imposed on us, which was linked to the number of machines we had (all on SOR, to quiet the dealer concerns about being hard to sell, which in fact they were).
This was the first time I ever saw a computer printout of a parts list! It was quite clear that Honda's clever SWOT analysis identified the UK makers' weaknesses (lousy quality) linked with resistance to buy because of perceived spares problems, and aggressively pursued these opportunities very positively and in a targeted way. Thus, while the UK manufacturers slept and pooh-poohed these funny looking machines, the Japanese quietly walked away with the industry leadership.
Some early Dream 250's had a problem with a plain main bearing. We received a letter from Honda telling us that a complete replacement engine was on the way for each of the Dreams we had sold and we were to contact their owners and arrange for their engines to be replaced at the earliest opportunity, labour bills to be sent to Honda. This despite the fact that none of our customers had reported any problem. This is the first example of a factory recall I had ever seen and we were bowled over by such a thing. A letter from the Japanese GM of Honda was to be given to each owner apologising for the inconvenience.
To people used to the British industry and its typical response to warranty issues (i.e. weeks to wait for the parts) this was simply astonishing.
Their one weakness which took a long while to overcome was that of frame design. Whereas the Brits saw the frame as key to overall performance (Norton etc), the Japs saw it as something which held the wheels on and enabled the engine to be connected to them. As anyone who rode a 70's Kawasaki can vouch for, handling with such excellent and powerful engines could vary from the terrifying to the downright lethal. That 3-cyl 2 stroke Suzuki was death on wheels. Racing cured all that of course.
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KB - I also bought my first bike in Ilford because that's where I grew up. A bit before you (circa 1961) from a shop somewhere near the Cranbrook Road. Does the place ring a bell? The bike was a Francis Barnett and cost about £50, which was a sum in those days.It spent more time in bits than it did on the road and I think it was 125cc. Apparently, some Fanny Barnetts are quite collectable now; my friend has just acquired one. I think its a Plover. Growler mentions Pride and Clarke, about whom I have fond memories. What an adventure that was - down to 'souf' London to look at the bikes.
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Bafta, CR Speed shop was in York Road just off the Cranbrook Rd where the buses stopped (next to the little shop used as a cafe for the drivers).
There was a Motor cycle shop called Warwick Double actually in Cranbrook Rd, but much nearer Barkingside opposite Barnes the car dealer next to a builders merchants. I bought an immaculate 1966 Triumph Tiger 90 350cc in there ( I think it had an orange tank, as opposed to the bigger models - was the 650 Bonny maroon?). Much better buy than the C15. The shop later sold 3 wheelers. Can't recall what it is now.
KB.
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Ah, Warwick Double, that brings back some memories!
That's where I bought my first love, a Reliant Regal Supervan 3!! Ran out of fuel on the way home and had to push it about 3 miles because the carb had blocked, then the back axel broke three weeks later. Dead reliable after that and kept it for two and a half years, longest I have ever owned a car.
Went there again in the mid eighties with a mate who bought a new Yugo from them. I had to drive it home for him as he had only just started learning. Nearest thing to a tractor I have ever driven, the gear lever needed to move about a mile and a half every time you changed. He had no interest in cars, just wanted something cheap and he ran it for about twelve years till it finally expired.
Last time I was up that way, the old showroom was selling furniture. Do you remember a salesman called Tony Walker? I think he had worked there for ever.
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