Braddog
10-17-2005, 12:15 PM
Following is a posting/e-mail from a gentleman named Aaron in Seattle. He needs some assistance with providing value to an insurance company.
If anyone can provide any assistance, I'm sure he would appreciate it. Read on...
================================================== ======
Hi,
I have a bike on your site
(at http://www.geocities.com/rs77webmaster/ms78/index.html )
It is a 1978 R100S ‘Motorsport’ Sr. No 6067620, listed under the name Aaron.
About a month ago I was rear-ended on the street and the bike suffered quite a
bit of damage as a result. Since then I have been involved in discussions with
the insurance company representing the person responsible for the damage to try
to get these people pay for the repair costs. Currently their position is that
this bike isn’t rare at all and that as far as they are concerned it’s worth
about $1,800. This amount is a “total” cost value for the bike, which means they
will take possession of it for said amount, as such, if I wanted to keep the
bike, I would have to buy it back from them.
Most people are reasonably familiar with the way insurance companies work with
respect to valuing personal property, so I won’t go into how frustrating and
insulting it all is. As it stands, the bike will cost somewhere in the order of
$5,000 to repair and put back to the way it was before the accident. In any
other circumstance, I would have to admit that this cost would be more than the
bike would be worth, but this is not just an R100S.
The rarity of the series is something we are all aware of, but it’s apparently
not something anyone that I have heard of can actually verify. This verification
would have to take the form of some form of documentation or something otherwise
substantive for me to actually succeed in making them believe that it’s a rare
machine.
Hence I am writing to you in the hopes that someone can help me to prove this
bike’s status as a special edition.
Personally, I love this machine. I spend countless hours maintaining, tuning and
cleaning the bike and always replace deteriorated parts with OEM parts. I have
already had the tank and front fairing repainted at serious expense and went to
exhaustive lengths to get the correct colours to do so. My investment in this
bike is substantial… money, time, dedication to authenticity and attention
verging on obsession. My girlfriend is jealous of the bike! In fact, the day
before the accident I spent four hours tuning it up in preparation to go for a
nice, long ride. I was on my way home from breakfast to pick up some maps so I
could leave on that trip when I was rear-ended.
I will pay for this machine’s repair. I know I can’t let it go to the scrap
yard, not only because I happen to have an oddly and deeply personal bond with
it, but also because I genuinely take it upon myself to defend its existence and
rarity.
I believe it’s my responsibility to make sure that this Motorspot will survive,
that when it’s most likely the majority of this series are already dead and long
gone and that more will eventually follow, as many as can be saved ought to be.
I can help in this effort by keeping *my* bike alive and happy. The unfortunate
thing for me is that the expense will break me. I’m not wealthy; I don’t have
thousands sitting around waiting to be spent. This will seriously hurt my
financial health for a time, but I will pay.
It may mean I have to pay in installments or come up with some other method of
payment, but it’s very difficult to accept that I would have to when there
exists a corporation who is supposed to right the situation caused by their
client. I find the behaviour of this insurance company to be reprehensible. They
know the bike is worth more than what they are offering and they don’t care that
I cannot find anything to back up my claim that it is, so they remain
intransigent and aloof.
I’m turning to you and your visitors to help me to try to find some way to
substantively, or as much so as possible, verify how few/many of these were
produced.
I have heard several assertions that something in the order of 92 of them were
produced and that perhaps 200 of the RS were produced, but I have also read that
these numbers cannot be verified at all since there is no apparent record kept
of how many motorcycles were assigned specific paint schemes.
There are stories which support the belief that these bikes were destined for
the Australian market and were diverted for some reason to the U.S..
I have also read that the paint scheme might have been meant to support a
marketing campaign in aid of the first ‘Motorsport’ car (M1) BMW were trying to
release in 1978 and that because of production difficulties at the Italian (name
escapes me at present) sub-contractor’s facility, the release had to be delayed
until 1979… which could mean that the bikes might, from a PR standpoint, be an
embarrassment and so were off-loaded to the U.S. market.
There are other accounts about its history, all of them fascinating, but none
seem to be verifiable. What bothers me is that I have to believe that there is a
record somewhere for this series since they seem to have been more than simply
another paint scheme; they seem, from almost all accounts to be associated with
some special initiative and as such there ought to be some form of record.
So, that’s my story and my plea. I need your help. I’m trying very hard to save
this beautiful bike and I cannot think of another group who would be better
suited to help me on this campaign.
It’s obviously not a simple request, I realize there is some division on the
subject and I respect the fact that others have put in time and effort to try to
track down a definitive history. If I have to follow in their footsteps to try
to get the information I need to justify this bike’s special status, then I
will, but even then I would respectfully request help to know where to look, who
to talk to and what exactly I should look for.
Thank you for your time…
If you’ve read this far you have my appreciation.
Aaron O’Bryan-Herriott
Seattle
P.S. If anyone wishes to forward this mail to contact who could help me in this,
they absolutely have my blessing to do so.
=========================================
If anyone can provide any assistance, I'm sure he would appreciate it. Read on...
================================================== ======
Hi,
I have a bike on your site
(at http://www.geocities.com/rs77webmaster/ms78/index.html )
It is a 1978 R100S ‘Motorsport’ Sr. No 6067620, listed under the name Aaron.
About a month ago I was rear-ended on the street and the bike suffered quite a
bit of damage as a result. Since then I have been involved in discussions with
the insurance company representing the person responsible for the damage to try
to get these people pay for the repair costs. Currently their position is that
this bike isn’t rare at all and that as far as they are concerned it’s worth
about $1,800. This amount is a “total” cost value for the bike, which means they
will take possession of it for said amount, as such, if I wanted to keep the
bike, I would have to buy it back from them.
Most people are reasonably familiar with the way insurance companies work with
respect to valuing personal property, so I won’t go into how frustrating and
insulting it all is. As it stands, the bike will cost somewhere in the order of
$5,000 to repair and put back to the way it was before the accident. In any
other circumstance, I would have to admit that this cost would be more than the
bike would be worth, but this is not just an R100S.
The rarity of the series is something we are all aware of, but it’s apparently
not something anyone that I have heard of can actually verify. This verification
would have to take the form of some form of documentation or something otherwise
substantive for me to actually succeed in making them believe that it’s a rare
machine.
Hence I am writing to you in the hopes that someone can help me to prove this
bike’s status as a special edition.
Personally, I love this machine. I spend countless hours maintaining, tuning and
cleaning the bike and always replace deteriorated parts with OEM parts. I have
already had the tank and front fairing repainted at serious expense and went to
exhaustive lengths to get the correct colours to do so. My investment in this
bike is substantial… money, time, dedication to authenticity and attention
verging on obsession. My girlfriend is jealous of the bike! In fact, the day
before the accident I spent four hours tuning it up in preparation to go for a
nice, long ride. I was on my way home from breakfast to pick up some maps so I
could leave on that trip when I was rear-ended.
I will pay for this machine’s repair. I know I can’t let it go to the scrap
yard, not only because I happen to have an oddly and deeply personal bond with
it, but also because I genuinely take it upon myself to defend its existence and
rarity.
I believe it’s my responsibility to make sure that this Motorspot will survive,
that when it’s most likely the majority of this series are already dead and long
gone and that more will eventually follow, as many as can be saved ought to be.
I can help in this effort by keeping *my* bike alive and happy. The unfortunate
thing for me is that the expense will break me. I’m not wealthy; I don’t have
thousands sitting around waiting to be spent. This will seriously hurt my
financial health for a time, but I will pay.
It may mean I have to pay in installments or come up with some other method of
payment, but it’s very difficult to accept that I would have to when there
exists a corporation who is supposed to right the situation caused by their
client. I find the behaviour of this insurance company to be reprehensible. They
know the bike is worth more than what they are offering and they don’t care that
I cannot find anything to back up my claim that it is, so they remain
intransigent and aloof.
I’m turning to you and your visitors to help me to try to find some way to
substantively, or as much so as possible, verify how few/many of these were
produced.
I have heard several assertions that something in the order of 92 of them were
produced and that perhaps 200 of the RS were produced, but I have also read that
these numbers cannot be verified at all since there is no apparent record kept
of how many motorcycles were assigned specific paint schemes.
There are stories which support the belief that these bikes were destined for
the Australian market and were diverted for some reason to the U.S..
I have also read that the paint scheme might have been meant to support a
marketing campaign in aid of the first ‘Motorsport’ car (M1) BMW were trying to
release in 1978 and that because of production difficulties at the Italian (name
escapes me at present) sub-contractor’s facility, the release had to be delayed
until 1979… which could mean that the bikes might, from a PR standpoint, be an
embarrassment and so were off-loaded to the U.S. market.
There are other accounts about its history, all of them fascinating, but none
seem to be verifiable. What bothers me is that I have to believe that there is a
record somewhere for this series since they seem to have been more than simply
another paint scheme; they seem, from almost all accounts to be associated with
some special initiative and as such there ought to be some form of record.
So, that’s my story and my plea. I need your help. I’m trying very hard to save
this beautiful bike and I cannot think of another group who would be better
suited to help me on this campaign.
It’s obviously not a simple request, I realize there is some division on the
subject and I respect the fact that others have put in time and effort to try to
track down a definitive history. If I have to follow in their footsteps to try
to get the information I need to justify this bike’s special status, then I
will, but even then I would respectfully request help to know where to look, who
to talk to and what exactly I should look for.
Thank you for your time…
If you’ve read this far you have my appreciation.
Aaron O’Bryan-Herriott
Seattle
P.S. If anyone wishes to forward this mail to contact who could help me in this,
they absolutely have my blessing to do so.
=========================================