CLASSIC WORLD
UK’s biggest collection of Yamaha proddie racers for sale
For much of the 1970s a good club racer could buy the latest TZ from their local dealer, get some judicious tuning and compete in GPs. Yamaha’s production racers were that good. And now you have one of the best opportunities to buy one, thanks to Glyn Marriott.
Glyn is a Birkenhead bike dealer who, over three decades, has amassed the UK’s biggest collection of TZs and their predecessors, the TDs and TRs. He’s selling all 17 of his bikes at the MCN London Bike Show on February 16.
The machines range from a 1969 TR-2– Yamaha’s first ever 350 proddie racer – to a 1994 TZ125, with almost every other Yamaha TZ in between. There’s a matching-numbers 1973 TZ700A, a similarly well-restored matching-numbers 1981 TZ500H and a brutal-looking 1977 Maxton TZ750D – one of only six built by the recently deceased chassis guru Ron Williams. All three have a guide price of £25-30,000 (though we suspect they’ll go for a lot more than that).
“Glyn Marriott was a racer back in the day, but he didn’t ride any of these,” says Mark Bryan from Iconic Auctioneers, who are selling the collection at the MCN Show. “He wanted to collect every variant of Yamaha’s production racers and kept an eye out for matching-numbers bikes. These were quite rare, because race bike frames and engines are changed a lot [due to crashes and blow-ups]. We don’t know of a bigger collection of TZs in the UK.
“Glyn’s had the bikes on display in his dealership for years and wants to move them on to people who might do more with them – maybe recommission them and put them back on the track. We’ve already had a lot of interest, with people trying to do deals before the auction.”
• More info: iconicauctioneers.com & mcnmotorcycleshow.com
