Last weekend’s Mecum auction in Las Vegas saw a lot of bikes going for big money, but the biggest money of all was the sale of a 1915 Cyclone V-twin. This vintage bike broke records as the gavel fell on a $1.2M USD sale price, which worked out to $1.32M after buyer’s premiums were added.
Doing the math, based off our constantly fluctuating USD-CAD exchange rate, that’s about $1.895M CAD in early February, 2025, numbers. Add in the cost of conversion fees, not to mention taxes, and this machine would be well over $2M CAD before you got it back home into Canada, if you’d bought it at the auction.
As the video above says, this motorcycle came to the auction with no reserve, restored by Stephen Wright; at one point, it had been owned by Bud Ekins, famed industry insider and stunt man.
Never heard of Cyclone? They were the hot ticket back in the day, selling performance bikes in the pre-World War I era, fast board track and flat track racers that won races and held world records. Powered by an air-cooled 996cc V-twin, the Cyclone had a single-speed transmission and made about 45 hp. You could push this bike all the way to 100 mph if you dared, but with only a crude 5-inch drum brake up front with a leading shoe design, and no rear brake at all, you had better plan on plenty of stopping room. Of course, the lack of rear suspension and the basic leaf spring suspension up front also would have made it tricky to control the machine at speed. And to get powered up, you had to not only run the carb via the usual twist-grip throttle, you also had a handlebar-controlled ignition advance.
We take all this stuff for granted today, but in 1915 when this bike was built, the technology we see on modern bikes was basically sci-fi. So next time you go out to the garage and fire up your modern machine with EFI, ABS, traction control, and so on, remember: You might not have a two-million-dollar machine, but your bike will sure be a lot easier and more comfortable to ride.
Looks like a rear brake to me. No front brake.
Also sold Neil Peart’s GS for US$88k