I'm in New Zealand and shipped a 1969 K0 750 out of San Francisco in 2005 then a 1973 Kawasaki Z1 in 2008 out of Atlanta. At great expense I might add, and both bikes needed restoration and had to have various port charges and taxes paid. Add on the pathetically weak NZ dollar and you might ask yourself why the hell I did it.
Well, it's about passion. Not about making a profit or anything else. I did it just for me. Oh dear, how selfish
The USA was the prime market for all Japanese makers in the 1960's and '70's. So that's where 90 percent of the survivors are.
Remember, a lot of bikes were given as graduation presents back then. Also, the draft meant that a lot of young owners never returned from Vietnam. Very sad. Or the young owners never had a real interest in motorcycling and just parked them up. Sometimes under a tree, sometimes in a climate controlled garage. And finally, due to technology and the internet they come out on eBay and can be marketed in a truly global marketplace.
Any bikes exported to New Zealand suffered from the marine climate here and just rusted away and were junked. The only K0's I know of in this country are private imports from the UK and the USA. They are very rare here.
Also, as a testament to the creators of these bikes, they were never meant to last 40 years. So it's a credit to the designers, engineers and Soichiro Honda and everyone else in the Honda company that they are still being collected and brought back to life.
But remember it was in an age of planned obsolescence and when the next years model came out, that was the one to have.
That mentality is alive and well today too. But for some of us, the older the Japper, the more collectible it is. Does anyone on this forum really want a 2009 Shagmaster Mark II with digital this and that. I don't
