In Pursuit Of Rare Vintage Motorcycles
Story by Paul Garson, Photos by Paul Garson and Courtesy of Glenn Bator
This is a story of motorcycle sibling rivalry that went down a few years ago and now worth retelling as 2013 winds down, the tale told by Glen Bator of Bator International. Case in point, two 1939 Crocker Big Tank V-twins, consecutively numbered 106 and 107. They even have names: The Black Bike and The Red Bike. And that in itself is an indication of the fork in the well-bent road taken by these two cult classics.
As the reigning Holy Grails of the current vintage motorcycling feeding frenzy, Crockers continue to set auction records. For example, a trio of Crockers up on the Bonhams auction block broke the existing world record for the brand in August 2012 when a 1937 and a 1940 both sold for $302,000 each at the Quail Lodge sale. Back in 2006 Steve McQueen’s 1937 Crocker “Hemi-Head” went for $276,500.For the price of a nice island off Costa Rica, collectors are pistol whipping each other to own one of the bikes built by a maverick American designer/entrepreneur by the name of Albert Crocker.
