Older members may remember my various projects with "older' Himas, usually the BS3 carby types but also occasionally a BS4, to "better than new".
However not for lack of interest but mostly for the enormous increase in parts costs (now about 50-100% over 2016 prices) this "hobby" stopped to be worth my while.
Not that I ever made a lot of profit from it, in most cases near zero, but besides a lot of fun it also served me as rides I could hand to friends visiting and / or sharing a longer tour.
Btw bikes themselves have also roughly hit the 50% mark, my first Hima I purchased for 1.55 lakh, or 1.75 "on the road" - the new 440 Hima (95% old tech) stands at 2.8 lakh "on the road".
This is still cheap compared to western prices but the costs for a good quality overhaul of an old bike just does not pay anymore, even with zero consideration of my own work time. Also the number of western tourists that come to India who used to rip the 500cc BS3 Himas out of my hands (at the time with ca. 33HP the best you could get) now look at the 450 and buy that. Not that I think its better, no way, but it took away the market nonetheless.
I have other stuff I can spend time with but my mechanics who made good money with those "supervised" conversion are not happy.
for outsiders: a Lakh is 100.000 and 100 INR are about 1 Euro
However not for lack of interest but mostly for the enormous increase in parts costs (now about 50-100% over 2016 prices) this "hobby" stopped to be worth my while.
Not that I ever made a lot of profit from it, in most cases near zero, but besides a lot of fun it also served me as rides I could hand to friends visiting and / or sharing a longer tour.
Btw bikes themselves have also roughly hit the 50% mark, my first Hima I purchased for 1.55 lakh, or 1.75 "on the road" - the new 440 Hima (95% old tech) stands at 2.8 lakh "on the road".
This is still cheap compared to western prices but the costs for a good quality overhaul of an old bike just does not pay anymore, even with zero consideration of my own work time. Also the number of western tourists that come to India who used to rip the 500cc BS3 Himas out of my hands (at the time with ca. 33HP the best you could get) now look at the 450 and buy that. Not that I think its better, no way, but it took away the market nonetheless.
I have other stuff I can spend time with but my mechanics who made good money with those "supervised" conversion are not happy.
for outsiders: a Lakh is 100.000 and 100 INR are about 1 Euro