A recent rethink of vehicle strategies has seen a friend looking for a sports bike with a £3,000 budget. We love a good imagination shop here at SuperBike, so one lunchtime we got stuck in to choosing his next bike for him. Initial suggestions of Suzuki SV650s and late nineties GSX-Rs shocked us with how cheap they could be picked up and this got us thinking. What’s the fastest or most exotic superbike you could pick up for three grand? The googlemachine was consulted and we came up with three ways to get the most out of your savings:
1. Classic superbikes
We’re not talking ancient, irrelevant classics here, more modern classics that we can still remember drooling over in magazines. £3k will bag you a tidy original Honda Fireblade, Suzuki GSX-R1000K1 or Yamaha R1. They’re the best of both worlds really; new enough to ride like a modern bike, but old enough and cult enough to be going up in price. Any of those three would be a good investment, unless you cartwheel it into a hedge.
This picture does funny things to all of us…
2. Exotica
Yup, even £3,000 gets you some Italian exotica, and not some ropey old pile either. Aprilia RSV Milles and Ducati 748s were the stuff of posters when they came out and now you can have one in your garage for the price of two family holidays. The downside is that if you don’t look after it, you’ll be on first name terms with your local recovery company. The upside, well, that’s obvious…
A WSB winner for under £3,000. You’d be daft not to buy one.
3. Big speed
When it comes to mph per pound, you’re spoilt for choice on a three grand budget and you’ll not find a faster way to spend your money. The Kawasaki ZX-12R, Honda Blackbird and Suzuki Hayabusa are all in reach and all, with a bit of tinkering, can be nudged over the 200mph barrier (on a closed road of course). 200mph for £3,000? That really is nuts.
The biggest disappointment in all of this was that it wasn’t actually our money to spend, but it sure has got us thinking. Who needs a family car anyway?