Sensation at the Las Vegas, USA, Mecum auction (29 January-1 February) was the world’s first £1m motorcycle sale under the public gaze.
This new world record price – £1,062,070/$1.32m – was paid for a 1915 Cyclone V-twin. And it helped Mecum set a new world record gross take for a motorcycle auction, reaping a green whirlwind of $27.2m (£21.2m), up nearly $1.5m (£1.2m) on Mecum’s previous world’s best.
Other world records were set by a 1938 Crocker V-twin (£880,000/£710,000) and an 1898 De Dion Bouton three-wheeler ($165,000/£133,000).
All top ten sellers were pre-war machines apart from a 1974 Ducati 750SS ($198,000/£159,800). Five were from 1915 or earlier, and eight were from the late Urban S Hirsch III (1941-2024) collection. Hirsch III was the founder and CEO of Ink Systems Inc., a printing ink manufacturer. He loved pre-1916 motorcycles in particular.