It's not surprising to see niche businesses of all sorts these days, with the reach of the Internet, you can find customers all over the globe, but World Motorcycles, owned by Vic World, specializes solely in the restoration of sandcast Honda CB750s, now niche is that?
Reading the new Motorcyclist Retro, I came across the story about Vic's shop and it struck me as a nice enjoyable business, but with a grand total of 7414 sandcast 750s ever produced and the majority of them probably long gone to junkyards, is this a sustainable business? Well, it seems to be. Vic got the sandcast 750 bug early on and began collecting NOS parts from everywhere, he bought up the remains of old bikes in whatever condition found, and built up a considerable stash before everyone else caught on that these bikes were special, which eventually happened.
Now, if you're interested, he'll do a complete nut and bolt restoration for you if you would like to ride a perfect example of one of these early sandcast Hondas or perhaps put one on display. The price is $29,500, which reflects the rarity of the bike to begin with, the amount of work involved in the restoration and the increasing demand for this milestone motorcycle. His restorations have earned quite a reputation, Honda has one on display in Japan and Honda has one here in the U.S., too, plus there's one in the Barber Museum. I'd say that's pretty high praise. Neat!
Link: World Motorcycles
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mmmmmmm. Nice. very nice indeed.
They’re worth that much because he went around buying them all up along with all the spare parts. He beat you to them now he’ll charge you an arm and a leg to buy them from him.
-todd
Please excuse my ignorance, but what is a “sand cast” CB750? (I’ m familiar with sand-casting and CB750’s) I’ve heard the term before, but I don’t know what particular models/era the sand-cast CB’s were from.
Can anybody educate me?
Sandcast 750s were the very first ones built before Honda began using die cast tooling to make the engine cases.
FOR MYSELF, THANKS I WONDERING THE SAME THING.
From memory, the first 7414 CB750’s were the “sandcast” ones, though I believe they were not in fact sand castings but gravity die cast. After that they moved to better tooling which eliminated the “rough-ish” look that the sandcast motors had.
There were a bunch of other detail differences between these and the later models as well. In fact the later (K2) was a much better bike, but of course the mania is for “Early” and “original”.
todd, I know a guy who has a wooden WWII Mosquito and also a Mustang P51, both unrestored and original in his shed. Fifty years ago people thought he was mad. Now they just think he had forethought. Get over it mate, why didn’t you go around the Honda dealers buying up sandcat parts? You know why, you never thought of it, so don’t knock Vic World.
Old Hondas Rule!
I own a 1977 CB750k w/blacked out engine, low handle bars, 4 into 1 header and
I bobbed the turn signal stems.(looks & sounds great) sounds even better w/baffle
out of the pipe!
If anyone out there is in the market for a vintage m/x bike, I also own 1974 Bultaco 360 cc Pursang (the widow maker)
This bike’s engine has a fresh rebuild (hugh’s Bultaco) less than 25 hours on rebuild,
Cost to rebuild engine was about $`1200.00, the rest of the bike is all original.
“goes like hell” if interested send me an e-mail.
Hey can anyone tell me how to tell if the engine is sandcast?
Thanks, Marcel
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