...the old bike in a bag trick

[Guest]

In early January, we sold a 1970 Yamaha XS-1 650cc twin - fairly rare bike - these were the first year the 650 twin was made - and this one was a very low numbered bike (number 651 where the numbers started at 101 - so number 550 off the production line).

The customer lives in Holland, just outside Amsterdam.

He arrived a month later at our place with a rental car, a strong friend, and three suitcases - and left with a bare frame, three suitcases and two small crates he brought with him in the suitcases.

We dismantled the bike, put the engine in one small crate, the wheels in the other small crate, and the rest of the parts in the three suitcases (each weighing just 60lbs) and wrapped the frame with some cardboard.... and off he drives to take the bike back to Europe on the airplane...

The bike will be totally restored.

...and you thought it was difficult to ship a bike...

[Hoomgar]

hmmm

[Robert Corrie]

THAT is what I would call "Dedication"

[syafi]

This way the custom will charge for parts instead of CBU. so its much cheaper tax.

We in Malaysia pay 130% tax. so a busa would be arund 22k USD new .

if use the parts way then its only ~30-40 %

[JayH]

I hope he didn't try to put the suitcases in the overhead bin on the plane!

[Cracker]

Wow, if they are taking away nail clippers, I wonder what they will say about bike parts :?

[jeff.saunders]

I traded emails with the customer after they got home. Apparently everything went smoothly until they got to customs in Holland - the poor customs agent didn't know how to handle a motor vehicle import - being at the airport on the passenger side, they never received any training on that - so my customer was delayed for a fair while as they figured out the paperwork for the bike.

Years ago, I used to work on a Nitro Funny Car team - and we were always flying with spare parts and tools in the bags - a set of magnetos, a couple of cylinder heads, pistons, cams, - lots of it...

these days it would be tough to get that stuff through airport security.