Dave started his bike career restoring an early CB750. Buying bits from a breaker led to him buying job lots and before he knew it he was dealing in new and used Honda parts in London. That was back in the mid-80’s, just when older Japanese bikes were beginning to earn serious credibility as significant classic machines.

But many restorers found that Honda’s spares prices were too much for their pockets. There was obviously a demand for discounted parts. At the same time dealers and parts distributors around the world found they were stuck with crate loads of parts for old Hondas. He then started building up contacts and found himself being offered the entire spares stocks belonging to army units in Africa and even Arabian police forces. Now he travels around the world buying stock. He has an amazing recall on Honda part numbers making it possible for him to scan a printout of parts and know exactly what’s on offer. It’s a skill that ensures he does not inadvertently end up buying a container load of moped offside indicator brackets.

The next job is to get the material to England; most of the stuff comes into the port of Felixstowe in containers. “We moved out of London at the height of the 1988 property boom – it just cost too much to rent space in London and with a business increasingly based on mail order (it accounts for 95% of the £2 million annual turnover), being based in Suffolk was as good as anywhere else and a lot cheaper”. We have 25,000 square feet of storage space and every inch of it is choke-a-block with those distinctive brown Honda boxes with the red label.

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