Lots of vroom!

Foley man started collecting motorcycles by accident, now has 75 

by Bill Vossler

In a way, Mike Henry of Foley could not help collecting motorcycles, of which he now has 75, of all makes and sizes--except not a Harley.

“I grew up in a family where my four older brothers all had dirt bikes and street bikes, so it seemed normal for me to get a motorcycle.” He added that his older brothers, “were hellions for sure,” and laughed.

“At a young age I had minibikes, and at seven years old I graduated to Honda three-wheelers, and probably the first bike I had was a Yamaha 90, which was a little big for me. From there I went to a Honda 150 street bike, and have gone up from there.”

He began collecting in 2010 almost by accident.

“I found a couple of vintage ones people said were just sitting in their garage. I cleaned them up, ran new gas into them, new batteries, and it just kind of went from there. In 2014 I started advertising in North and South Dakota, looking for these vintage bikes, and I had an unbelievable response. Sometimes I picked up a trailer load of them.”

“If I say ‘1971 Camaro,’ everyone knows it is a muscle car. The motorcycles of that era are muscle like the Kawasaki 900s and 1000s, even Kawasakis with two-cylinder, three-stroke engines, street bikes.”

He chose to keep several of the muscle street bikes for his collection because they are so rare.

“Whenever I get another motorcycle for my collection first I clean it up, and remove the oil. That’s what I did when I put two nice three-cylinder Kawasaki bikes in the entryway in my house. I pushed them in one day just to see what they looked like, and they’ve been sitting there now for five years. Not a lot of people know that the three-cylinder Kawasakis were two-stroke engines. Some were liquid cooled, but some were air cooled. Some were probably bigger than the older Harleys. I also have a nice bike like that on a wood platform sitting in the corner on display in my house.”

“And no, I’m not married,” the 56-year-old laughed.

The major motorcycle problem is storage, said Mike.

“They’re packed pretty tight in three rows in the three-car garage, and if I want to get something out, I have to move about 20 bikes out of the way to get the one I want. And then put them all back. But there isn’t much degradation because they are inside on a cement floor, and I keep them clean and out of the elements.”

Outside of the rare Kawasakis, Mike has had contact with at least one more-or-less world famous motorcycles. 

“A collector bought Evel Knievel’s motorcycle that the daredevil used to jump over the fountains at Caesar’s Palace. The guy who bought it stopped at my place to buy one of my bikes, and Knievel’s bike was in his trailer, and he put mine right beside it. That bike was authenticated as the very motorcycle he used to jump at Las Vegas, so it was a good feeling.”

One of Mike’s most unique motorcycle, outside of the Kawasaki triples, as the three-cylinder machines are called, is an early 1960s military motorcycle.

“It has a sidecar, and only 30-40 miles on it. A guy bought it from a military surplus store, and now I have it. Pretty unique.”

Another unusual bike is a Suzuki motorcycle from the late 1970s that had a rotary round engine, with no pistons.

“The piston was a triangle that spun around in there. It evidently didn’t work really well, as the rotary engines only lasted for a year or two.”

A weird situation also occurred with a 1969 Honda 750.

“Because of such a demand for that bike, Honda had other companies build the engine blocks. Some were sand-cast blocks so poorly made that some literally leaked oil through the block.”

But that Honda is now very rare.

“It’s very, very rare and sought after. Kind of like an Edsel. It seems like oddball things are always worth money.”

His super-rare ones are the ones from the late 1960s and into the 1970s.

“Those were muscle bikes at the time. They were insanely fast and dangerous, having too much power for the bike.”

Another odd motorcycle is one he bought in North Dakota seven years ago.

“The front end was chopped, without a seat, but with an actual horse saddle on it. When I saw it, the owner said I had to take a drive in it first, so I drove it around the little town of New Salem, and I decided to buy it.”

Mike managed to sell a few motorcycles overseas.

“After I started collecting I advertised in North and South Dakota, and Senior Perspective, and had great success finding motorcycles. The owners say things like, ‘It’s been in my garage and hasn’t run for years.’”

“So one day during lunch at the construction site where I was working, I found I’d gotten a call from a guy who spoke like an Englishman and said he was calling from the United Kingdom. He said he wanted a particular bike I’d advertised on Craig’s list. At first I thought it was a scam, but he called back, so I sold him one.”

Also to a man in Australia.

“I don’t have anything to do with the shipping. We agreed on a price, and after I was paid, someone picked the bike up, and probably put it in a shipping container with other things going to Australia.”

Same with one he sold to a guy in Iceland, and Japan.

“I guess they were just the right bikes for those people. But I enjoy collecting more than selling one or two.”

Mike said he still advertises and he is still willing to buy old motorcycles. 

“If I’m lucky I get one a month now, and often they want too much for them. After 10 years in the garage, the battery and tires are bad, the gas is rusty, and they want a price as if it is running in perfect shape. Everybody thinks their motorcycle is gold, worth $2,000.  They usually say, ‘Well, somebody told me it’s worth that much.’ I tell them everybody has an opinion on what they are worth. But I have to be realistic because if I buy theirs, it’s going to be a lot of work to fix it, and cost a lot of money.”

The least collectible motorcycles for Mike are from the early 1980s to mid-1990s.

“But as the years go by, different motorcycles become collectible again. Like 10 years ago everybody wanted early 1970s muscle motorcycles, but now they want the early 1980s. People will say, ‘While I was growing up I had one of those, or my dad had one of those, so I have to have one of those.’”

Mike started collecting when he found vintage motorcycles of his era were abundant.

“Everybody had one in their garage, and they said, ‘I didn’t know what to do with it until I saw your ad.’ Some vintage motorcycles from the late 1960s and early 1970s are works of art. The factory colors were bright green and purple with pinstripes. Lots of stuff like that on these vintage motorcycles, like the old Plymouths and ‘Cudas.”

Mike doesn’t have all his bikes licensed, insured, or batteried.

“The garage isn’t heated, so batteries wouldn’t last long anyway. And I’ve never driven the vast majority of them, and I won’t. I cleaned them up, drained the gas, and parked them. Keeping them all running would be impossible. The three or four that I do ride, I’ll take the good battery out of one and put it in the one I want to drive.”

One favorite is a 2005 Honda VTX.

“That’s the only bike I ever bought new. All my friends were buying them and getting a good deal on them because it was the next year, 2006. I bought something else in the shop, and the salesperson said, ‘You need a 2005 too. The price was really dropped off from the retail price, so I bought it.”

In addition to his motorcycles, Mike has a nice collection of motorcycle helmets.

“When I buy a motorcycle, sometimes people will have a brand new helmet in a box. ‘We never wore it,’ they’d say. I collect anything vintage, motorcycle memorabilia, old motorcycle oil cans, advertising and so on.”

Mike still hears well, and he attributes that to wearing a helmet.

“For the last many years I’ve become a fan of wearing a helmet because it cuts down on the noise.” 

The hunt is what he enjoys most about collecting motorcycles.

“You never know what someone will call you about. They all say ‘I’ve got one in my garage that hasn’t run in ten years, and I want this much for it.’ That’s exciting, and then I go buy it. I bring it back home and wash it off and clean it up and find out it’s a lot prettier than before. So I see what I’ve got and then I get it running.”

Some people want Mike to work on their bikes.

“But I can’t. I’ve never rebuilt any in my life. All I do when I find a bike is drain the gas tank and clean it out. I power wash it and use good chrome polish and steel wool and it looks like brand new. I install a battery and new gas, and if it has fuel and spark it should run.”