This is a very very special motorcycle. This is a 1966 Honda RC173, a 349cc four-cylinder Grand Prix motorcycle built specifically for Mike Hailwood, who then used it to win the 350cc World Championship. It is now coming up for auction with auctioneers Iconic providing an estimate of £750,000 to £950,000.
Which is quite a lot for a motorcycle with no lights, no indicators, nowhere to put your sandwiches and absolutely no prospect of getting an MOT.
But then it is also, according to the auctioneers, the only one in existence.
Honda built the RC173 for Hailwood to contest the 1966 350cc World Championship alongside his 250cc and 500cc campaigns. This was a period when Grand Prix riders didn’t appear to worry terribly much about specialising. If somebody could find another motorcycle and another race, they simply got on with that as well.
Hailwood certainly did.
During the 1966 season he won the 350cc Grands Prix in West Germany, France, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Finland and Ulster, setting numerous fastest laps along the way.
That was enough to give him the World Championship ahead of Giacomo Agostini on the MV Agusta and Renzo Pasolini on the Benelli, neither of whom was exactly making up the numbers.
It was one of Hailwood’s nine motorcycle World Championships during a career which produced 76 Grand Prix victories and 14 Isle of Man TT wins.
Normally, the story of an old racing motorcycle becomes rather murky once its useful competitive life is over. Engines are changed, frames disappear, bits are borrowed to keep another bike going and, 40 years later, three different people discover that they all own the same machine.
This Honda’s history is rather better documented.
Hailwood kept the RC173 after his 1966 championship season and raced it again during 1967 at invitation events including Mallory Park and Oulton Park.
It later became part of the Wheatcroft Donington Collection before being sold at auction by the Hailwood family in 1997 to its current UK owner.
The Honda was subsequently returned to running order and appeared at events and parades in Britain. Then, in 2005, something rather unusual happened: it went home.
The Honda Collection Hall at Motegi in Japan asked to borrow it and, while the bike was there, Honda carried out a full chassis and engine rebuild. It returned to Britain in June 2006 and, importantly, retains its original matching engine and frame numbers.
It is also still in running order.
There are some pleasing extras. Various special tools come with it, along with an original set of carburettor jets and its original stand. There’s another stand made by Honda during its spell back at the factory, a Perspex display sign from the Honda Collection Hall and bespoke bike and screen covers.
None of these is likely to be the deciding factor when you’re contemplating spending the thick end of a million pounds, but it’s nice to have them.
And then there’s Hailwood himself.
He was only 26 when he won the 1966 350cc title, although by then he’d already been winning championships for years. At 18 he won three British Championships and the following year won all four – 125cc, 250cc, 350cc and 500cc.
Then, after seven years away from motorcycle racing, he returned to the Isle of Man TT in 1978, aged 38, and won the Formula One race on a Ducati.
As comebacks go, that’s difficult to improve upon.
He was also an accomplished car racer, finishing third at Le Mans in 1969 driving a Ford GT40. Hailwood died in 1981, aged only 40, following a road accident in Warwickshire.
All of which explains why this Honda is rather more than an interesting old racing bike.
It was built by Honda specifically for Mike Hailwood. He raced it. He won six Grands Prix on it. He became World Champion on it. He kept it afterwards. And more than half a century later, it still has its original engine and frame.
Iconic Auctioneers will offer the RC173 at the NEC Classic Motor Show on Sunday, 15 November. Click here for full details.
Will somebody really pay £950,000 for it?
Possibly. Because once you’ve decided that you’d quite like Mike Hailwood’s actual World Championship-winning works Honda, shopping around for a cheaper one isn’t really an option.
