Laverdas bomb at Bonham's Stafford auction

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a14rgs said:
Hi Shug,

Irrespective of the state of the bike that you've bought, I think there may be a case of mistaken identity - Paul Armbruster and 'Sydney Ruffdiamond' are two entirely different people.
Sydney (AKA Adam) was not the owner or seller of the (former) yellow RGS.

I hope this hasn't tarnished your intro to Laverda ownership. There is a huge amount of global knowledge here, mixed up with (generally harmless) banter.
Good luck with your ongoing refurb.

Alan😊
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Thanks very much Alan for putting me right on that...My sincere apologies to Adam for the mistaken identity confusion. If I get to meet Adam , I'll apologize in person. I genuinely thought they were the one and same . But completely wrong.

I'm not fixated on the money, spending it so be it. If I get to ride it for another seven years before I have to move to smaller bikes, I'll be chuffed. I'm 66.

I've come across many very genuine people in the Laverda scene here and the ILOC and am looking forward to getting this RGS sorted. A winter of dark nights in the shed, what's not to like.The RGS is a lovely bike, just my sort of four stroke triple and I'm hoping to get it really good for next year 😀👍

I think I'm in good company, cheers Alan and the rest of you guys 😉

Hubert
 
Exmoor beast said:
Confirmed Batchelor Ted Heath…never did like him. Vincent story is unbelievable.
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Just been making progress through that article ... There`s a hell of a lot to take in ............ as you say , unbelievable .......

Just as an aside ......... It mentions Phil Vincent insisting the record attempt bikes remaining standard ... ( you can sort of understand why ) ....... but George Brown and Vic Willoughby trying to convince him to change the main bearings ...... George knew more about Vincents than Phil Vincent ...... but he just wouldn`t listen ........

One of the bikes went bang when Vic was out on it .......... proving he and George Brown had been right all along ........... but Phil Vincent blamed Vic for pushing too hard ( during a record attempt ? ) ....... and withdrew him as a rider , and refused to speak to him afterwards !!!!!
 
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As an ex-owner of said yellow RGS, just to put the record straight, the bike mileage recorded on the clock was approximately 30000km. However, that was on the second time around, although, from what I recall, the bike had a top end rebuild by the owner before me, around the 100k mark, the bottom end being left untouched as there was nothing wrong with it. Apparently, when the bike was stripped by Malcolm, before he rebuilt it, he found the bottom end was still in good enough condition not to require any work. As far as I am concerned 130k km on an RGS is still in its running in period. 😉
However, I generally don’t like yellow bikes so I can understand the desire to repaint it and regardless of whether it needed it or not.
I also think spending £12.5k on an RGS is crazy, but if the new owner gets a few years of enjoyment out of it then good luck to him, and then the amount of money invested isn’t such a big deal.
 
rocketonarail said:
Just been making progress through that article ... There`s a hell of a lot to take in ............ as you say , unbelievable .......

Just as an aside ......... It mentions Phil Vincent insisting the record attempt bikes remaining standard ... ( you can sort of understand why ) ....... but George Brown and Vic Willoughby trying to convince him to change the main bearings ...... George knew more about Vincents than Phil Vincent ...... but he just wouldn`t listen ........

One of the bikes went bang when Vic was out on it .......... proving he and George Brown had been right all along ........... but Phil Vincent blamed Vic for pushing too hard ( during a record attempt ? ) ....... and withdrew him as a rider , and refused to speak to him afterwards !!!!!
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Where does Phil Irving come into the Vincent story? And what does HRD stand for?
 
HRD was the name of the company before Phil Vincent bought it, Phil Urvine was at the end of a Sidecar trip overland from Melbourne to England, I think he worked for Velocent as a Draphtsman Engineer and came up with the positive stop foot gear change for them. He then worked for Phil Vincent and the myth of laying one single Comet engine drawing over the top of another apparently happened and Whola the V twin arrived. BTW this is all hazy memories from lots of reading over the years. It could always just be BULLSHIT.
 
Andy J said:
As an ex-owner of said yellow RGS, just to put the record straight, the bike mileage recorded on the clock was approximately 30000km. However, that was on the second time around, although, from what I recall, the bike had a top end rebuild by the owner before me, around the 100k mark, the bottom end being left untouched as there was nothing wrong with it. Apparently, when the bike was stripped by Malcolm, before he rebuilt it, he found the bottom end was still in good enough condition not to require any work. As far as I am concerned 130k km on an RGS is still in its running in period. 😉
However, I generally don’t like yellow bikes so I can understand the desire to repaint it and regardless of whether it needed it or not.
I also think spending £12.5k on an RGS is crazy, but if the new owner gets a few years of enjoyment out of it then good luck to him, and then the amount of money invested isn’t such a beig edeal.
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Thank you for imparting the extra information, it's more than I knew or now have a chance to get to know.

As I said to you Andy on the ILOC forum it's not an issue the mileage, as hopefully the engine will have been done and I understand that these engines if looked after are capable of huge mileages.

Or the colour or price both of which were fine... poor substandard paint not disclosed was not part of the deal.

To be fair to Malcolm Cox the paint was probably fine when delivered to Paul Ambruster but reacted after as is normal for a base coat which has thinners trapped under the clear or has reacted with the underlying paint.

That was Paul Ambrusters call to make known and he chose not to say.

The main issue is that Malcom Cox would have known from dealing with you that the true mileage was 130k km but chose to tell me it was 30k.

And it doesn't explain either the expletive and bolshie way of blocking me so there's no means of communication.

I could have left it as it is, put it up for sale and not mentioned anything re the above. But that's dropping someone else in it.

I've had my say and that's all I'm going to say. I'm happy to have an RGS, I have the skills to put it right and make it mine and enjoy it. The subject is closed as far as I'm concerned.

Cheers

Hubert
 
Exmoor beast said:
I’ve never seen a real SFC In the flesh.
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20 years ago you would have seen a few at any Laverda meeting. I took mine up to a few ILOC meetings, notably in Yorkshire along with the Swiss. One occasionally still turns up at the Amicale 750 Laverda meetings.
Age of the riders makes them hard to use long distance, but financial value has progressively sent them into the bank vaults.
You need to lend them to youngsters.
Paul
 
Paul Marx said:
20 years ago you would have seen a few at any Laverda meeting. I took mine up to a few ILOC meetings, notably in Yorkshire along with the Swiss. One occasionally still turns up at the Amicale 750 Laverda meetings.
Age of the riders makes them hard to use long distance, but financial value has progressively sent them into the bank vaults.
You need to lend them to youngsters.
Paul
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Go on, sell yours cheaply to a youngster?
 
Paul Marx said:
I've no idea what the current market price is. It stagnated quite a while and then went down.
I already have a buyer in case I sell, which I won't finally.
Paul
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You cant take it with you...no need to worry about price..from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, innit, Mr Marx?😉
 
nick7 said:
You cant take it with you...no need to worry about price..from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, innit, Mr Marx?😉
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So much compassion coming from you is heart warming, but you needn't worry, it'll go to somebody who'll ride it.
Paul
 
With Paul's ever-ready supply of snarky comments and put-downs, I suspect a permanent chip on the shoulder, likely related to working in inferior positions to folks he considered inferior. That's what it smells like, anyway.

It's predictable and tiresome, and always harshes the conversations in which they appear.
 
Paul Marx said:
After a night out in the rain.
The first allcomers Laverda meeting we organised in 96 which saw the rebirth of the Laverda Club de France. 100 people and numerous insults received on the phone when I said "no Laverda, no come".
Paul
View attachment 86331
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I came out to my bike with an open SFC2/1 after it stood a night in the rain, fired it up and sprayed the whole side of the nice white car parked beside it with filthy water out of the exhaust. I didn't hang around.
 
Kristian, I think it’s more a case of Paul being sardonic rather than anything else, but I can relate to your sentiments as I have often being in a situation where I have had to report to inferior beings. However, it doesn’t mean our opinions have to be kept to ourselves, everyone has the ability to filter out the ones they don’t like/agree with.
 
Tippie said:
I came out to my bike with an open SFC2/1 after it stood a night in the rain, fired it up and sprayed the whole side of the nice white car parked beside it with filthy water out of the exhaust. I didn't hang around.
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I used to derive great pleasure setting off car alarms when coming home late from an evening out with the boys.
I'd put soft balls in the carb intakes for the night when that pic was taken. I forgot to take them out in the morning. Rather embarrassing when wanting to lead a group ride out of a hundred or so Laverda.
Paul
 
Tippie said:
I came out to my bike with an open SFC2/1 after it stood a night in the rain, fired it up and sprayed the whole side of the nice white car parked beside it with filthy water out of the exhaust. I didn't hang around.
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I did similar - but with trans oil.

Got to a trial, started the Bultaco up, but the crank seal had torn and the oil in the primary drive was fairly quickly ejected through the exhaust and onto an adjacent van. What a mess. I didn't get to ride that day, but ate lots of humble pie for lunch.
 
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