I bought police bikes as part of making a living from 1988 up until the last one i bought which would be around 2003.
Condition would depend on what force it was coming from. For some reason manchester police force bikes were sheds, that includes patrol and surveillance bikes.
The met bikes were never high mileage, and the non runners used to fetch peanuts -Cheapest i ever bought was £60 for an 8 year old R80RT, had a broken clutch pushrod, £5 to fix.
Cumbria police had a couple of R100RT's i bought that had 12K miles on them. Had a few from North wales, including a "learner" R45RT with 5k miles on it.
I used to travel all over the country and the bikes would go through with the commercial vehicles during the day.
I stopped going when they started putting them through the auctions at West oxford motor auctions, witney. They held them on a thursday evening and advertised in the MCN so every man and his dog used to turn up and pay silly money for them.
Still a couple of forces that put them through commercial auctions but not in any great numbers to make it worthwhile chasing around.
And you'd be amazed what other bikes ( and cars) that the police use
.
I once bought a couple of norton rotary interpols, one from swansea, and the other from birmingham, also had a police honda VT500, CX500, FJ1100, a customs and excise undercover GT550 (which had a frame number completely different to what was in the log book, took 6 weeks to sort out, ended up with my money back and allowed to keep the bike for all the bother
).
Kent police once sold off 30 blue kawasaki Z200 bikes fitted with rickman full fairings and panniers, there were only 3 of us interested in the bikes so we bought ten each, paid around £80 each. And the pannier keys were missing on some bikes, i forced open the panniers when i got home and they all had police jackets, breathalysers, rolls of police "accident tape", and lots of other pollis paraphernalia
.
Kent police also had some moto guzzi G5 models with full fairings, and kent police vehicles used to be painted lime green. When they auctioned off the guzzis they'd sprayed the fairings white. But not nicely. it looked like thay'd chucked a sheet over the tank, bars and screen and just stood back and sprayed away. The fork legs, parts of the front wheel were a nice shade of white. I still bought two of them though.
Had more than a few police bikes with no frame or engine numbers
, so always best to check.
And if your buying from an auction and there are a few bikes available, always buy the first one through the auction. They fetch higher prices as the auction goes on and the number of bikes get less .
