Tamburini gems for sale

IF the renewed focus on Massimo Tamburini-designed bikes following the great man’s death has made you want to own one, you might want to get yourself to Stafford on April 27.

Bonhams is due to auction of selection Tamburini machines with estimates ranging from £900 to £65,000.

The timing is purely coincidental, but a web search to see what you might have to pay to own a classic Tamburini design threw up a plethora of results from the forthcoming sale.

Right at the top of the market comes a 1975 Bimota HB1, the first road-going machine to be designed by Tamburini. This one was sold as a kit and has been built up with a Japauto big-bore cylinder block to take its CB750 engine up to 970cc.Mechanically refurbished in 2010 but left with its original patina. With only 10 HB1s believed to have been made, all sold as kits apart from the original prototype, this is simply one of the rarest motorcycles on earth.

The price tag reflects that, of course. The machine is estimated to sell for between £55,000 and £65,000.

A step cheaper is a far more recent creation, the 2005 MV Agusta F4 1000 Agostini. With only three miles on the clock and never registered, this is expected to take £15,000-£20,000.

If that’s still a bit salty, how about a 2003 MV F4 750 SPR. Again a rare model, one of 300 made with 146bhp instead of 126bhp for the stock F4 750, it has done just 7,724 miles. It’s estimated at £7000-£9000.

However, even that isn’t really pocket change, so perhaps more tempting would be one of the three Ducati Pasos at the sale, which range in estimates from £900-£1200 for a white 1990 Paso 906 in need of some TLC, via a higher-spec 1991 907 I.E in red, estimated at £1200-£1500, to a 1994 Paso 906 in excellent shape and expected to take between £1800 and £2400.

Read our Top 10 Tamburini designs.