Got your sights set on a MotoGP? Then you’ll need to have some serious muscle, both to handle the V4’s thrust and to afford it. Last Sunday, an auction was held at the Silverstone circuit and among the lots up for sale, two exceptional machines were available: the Ducati Desmosedici 800 GP7s ridden by Casey Stoner and Loris Capirossi. They found buyers for the modest cumulative sum of £603,750, or €718,340. The more expensive of the two was Stoner’s championship-winning machine in 2007, sold for €475,000.
We contacted an expert in collecting past glories, Gerald Moto, to get an idea of the prices charged on this very particular market. And he also thinks that €400,000 for a 200 hp, 148 kg V4, almost 20 years old, is rather expensive. Even if it won 11 times that year. Equivalent machines would have sold for half the price less than 5 years ago. Especially since we learned that every year, Ducati and KTM in particular, resell their MotoGP of the year at the end of the season for around €330,000. That said, it’s still cheaper than the 1966 Honda RC166 and its 250cc 6-cylinder, listed at 2 000 000€ a few years ago at the Rétromobile show… Our exchange with Gerald was also an opportunity to learn that only European manufacturers resell their Grand Prix machines.I only know one guy who has Yamaha M1s, it’s Valentino Rossi.,” he explains.
