Someone Tried to Auction Their Aston Martin Motorcycle. It Didn't Go Well

A handful of years ago, Aston Martin teamed up with motorcycle manufacturer Brough Superior and debuted the AMB 001. It was highly limited, and extremely expensive, and now one just came up for auction and it didn't go the way the seller would've likely hoped.

Photo by: Bring a Trailer

By: Jonathon Klein

May 21, at 7:37am ET

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When Aston Martin debuted the AMB 001 motorcycle, in conjunction with the legendary Brough Superior nameplate, a handful of years ago, I was stunned. The bike was gorgeous, the pedigree was impeccable, and it had a freakin' turbocharged V-twin that sounded bananas. It also had a staggering asking price of $119,000.

And that was just for the regular version. There was also a Pro model, which upped the price to nearly $200,000.

But for your $119,000, you got a highly limited piece of history from both brands, and a superbike that looked straight out of the future. As you'd expect, a lot of collectors snapped them up, threw a sheet over them, and stashed them away in their billionaire concrete bunkers or displayed them in their living rooms surrounded by an alligator moat, hoping that one day, they could sell them at auction for a hefty return on investment.

Happily—because I'm a hater and feel you should actually ride your motorcycles—that didn't happen when one AMB 001 owner attempted to auction off their prized possession on Bring a Trailer, as not only did it fail to sell, but the bidding stopped before it even reached its original MSRP.

Karma, is that you?

AMB 001 Brough Superior

Photo by: Bring a Trailer

Number 57 of just 100 motorcycles built, this specific AMB 001 was supposedly purchased new by the seller, and looks to have never been ridden—no odometer reading was given to BAT, nor can you see anything on the dash upon startup. It's also remarkably clean, as in the type of clean you cannot get unless you do a full restoration or it's never seen asphalt.

Likewise, the motorcycle had never been registered, as it's track-only, and did not have a title, so all you were getting was a bill of sale, along with the manufacturer’s booklet on the bike, a rear paddock stand, and a smartphone that originally came with the motorcycle.

But let's talk about the bike itself, as it's powered by a 997cc 88-degree V-twin with a turbocharger slapped on to it from Brough, and it sounds about as good as you can imagine. Carbon remains the material of choice for most of the rest of the motorcycle, while bits of aluminum and inconel are used elsewhere. The paint is finished in Aston Martin's traditional Stirling Green colorway, with lime green accents, which the company adopted for its AMR lineup right around the same time period.

Again, this is a gorgeous motorcycle, and the engineering is cool as hell. But buyers didn't show up.

AMB 001 Brough Superior

Photo by: Bring a Trailer

Now, let's talk about that, as I think it's important not only to illustrate why vehicles as appreciating assets is dumb, but it also does a disservice to the manufacturers involved. Both Aston Martin and Brough Superior put a lot of time and energy into building a cool, hellaciously powerful track bike. This is a machine built for speed and speeding through the corners. But by limiting production, by calling it a limited edition, by doing all the stuff that makes collectors and prospectors happy, they created this motorcycle's downfall, and you can see that in just how clean and unused this machine is. Why bother even making it start or run or roar when you know it'll never do that?

Second, not every limited edition is going to be a collectible, and not for all time. This bike's heyday was when it was first introduced and soon after. Now six years later, and with so few actually being seen by the public—likely even rarer than any Bugatti—no one even remembers it but the few anoraks like myself and the handful of bidders on BAT. And the bidding up to $101,000, $18,000 short of the original asking price before options, shows that.

What do you think?

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Comments

It's all cool to have something rare, but not everything rare is going to appreciate in value, which makes not riding it at all that much more stupid. In my opinion. I guess my point of this all is that, you shouldn't save something for the next person. You shouldn't care if you get your machine dirty or if you break it. Use it. Ride it. Experience it. That's what life is about. Not hoarding and collecting and never living.

Anyways, ride your stuff.