We all have dream vehicles, don't we? Sometimes, they're a representation of a bigger vision of success. But other times, they're a tangible thing that we hope to one day get our hands on, caress, and call our own. It's up to you which category yours falls into; and because people contain multitudes, you may even have more than one.
But dreams can unfortunately be expensive. After all, there's a reason you don't usually think to yourself, "hey, I'm totally dreaming of a nicely toasted bagel right now." Why is that? Because a nicely toasted bagel, in most cases, is a pretty readily attainable thing. There's no need to elevate it to the level of a dream if you can reasonably expect to leave your home, stop at The Place Near You With The Best Bagels, and then proceed to make your day, right?
Now, a Yamaha R1M definitely rises to the level of a modern dream bike. If you love the extremely special sound of Yamaha's 998cc inline four-cylinder crossplane crankshaft engine, this is the ultimate expression of that concept that exists. And the neat part is, with enough money, you can actually go out and buy it; it's no mere concept. We're talking active Öhlins suspension, lightweight titanium engine internals, oodles of carbon fiber including MotoGP-derived winglets, magnesium wheels, and more. Sure, it also carries an MSRP of $27,899 (not including destination charges or any of the other fun fees that quickly add up if you head to your local dealership), but it's still somewhere within the outer bounds of possibility.
But what if it didn't have to cost around $30K? What if you could pay, say, new MT-07 money for an R1M instead? If that's you, then you might be Jeremiah at BigTime, and you might just have bought yourself a wrecked R1M off of CoPart.
Clearly, this isn't going to be the right answer for everyone. Buying wrecked auction bikes, after all, means they come with absolutely no guarantees. Sometimes, as was the case here, they don't even come with keys. Frequently, you may not even know if it runs or not when you submit your bid.
But if you're a handy sort of person, and you're willing to stomach a certain amount of risk to make your dream come true at a fraction of its usual MSRP, it still might potentially be worth it to you. Going into the deal as clear-eyed as you can is key; you know you're going to have to source parts for some things, of course. And you know that you probably won't have a full view of exactly what you've gotten yourself into until you've had a good chance to really look over the machine in detail; giving it a wash can certainly help you find things you might not have noticed in the pictures, as can actually trying to turn it on, seeing how the levers and shifter feel, seeing if the engine turns over, and so on.
And naturally, in this case, it also probably helps if you've literally made fixing up vehicles you're passionate about your job, rather than just a thing you do in your spare time. Finding the time, money, potential sponsors, and motivation to get it all done is going to look a lot different to someone making content for a YouTube channel (or the Internet in general, really) than it might be if you only have a few spare hours during the week when you're not working, sleeping, or tending to regular life duties.
A quick look at CoPart as I'm writing this shows over 500 motorcycles and scooters currently available, across a range of makes and models. Lots of Indians, Triumphs, and more Victory motorcycles than I've seen in a minute, as well as some others. Little scooters and dirtbikes, too. Nothing like the R1M, but you don't see those in the wild very often anyway, so that's not terribly surprising. No wrecked Ducatis right now, either.
So, I have two questions for you here. One is, what's your modern dream bike? And two, would finding a wrecked one up for auction at a fraction of its usual MSRP make you think it's a good idea to buy and fix up? Let me know in the comments.
