Spicers Auctioneers Ltd
Lot 1043
1986 BMW R80RT, 798 cc. Registration number D856 YLR. frame number 6472681. Engine number 6472681. BMW's first 'R80' model was the R80/7 introduced in 1977 as replacement for the 750cc R75/7. Like its predecessor, the R80/7 was powered by BMW's traditional air-cooled flat-twin engine coupled to low-maintenance shaft final drive transmission. Following the introduction of the R80G/S enduro bike in 1980, the R80 family was extended further by the R80ST and R80RT, the latter being a long-distance tourer equipped with the capacious fairing first seen on the R100RT. New for 1982, the R80RT was up-dated for 1984, gaining the wheels, forks and 'Monolever' single-sided swinging arm of the K-series. Engineered to BMW's customarily high standards, the revised R80RT was far from cheap and at £3,620 cost 50% more than Kawasaki's similarly shaft-driven Z750GT tourer. Essentially the RT was a slimmed down version of the 'bigger sister' R 100 RT. In principle, the smaller engine was simply installed in the frame of the R 100 RT. The differences to the R 100 RT were monochrome paint (without the typical black edges), the cylinder head cover was not painted, cylinder guard was only as optional extra, clock and voltmeter also only as an optional extra, case holder only as a special accessory, drum brake instead of disc brake on the rear wheel. YLR was supplied by Shocombes of London to Hogg Robinson Travel Ltd of Woking, being first registered on the 4th August 1986, the following year they sold it via D.B. Motors to Catherine Kitt of Swindon. She sold it to Charles Abell of Reading in the February of 1988 and he sold it to Ian Jackson of Basingstoke four months later. Jackson used it for some ten years, selling it to his ex wife's new husband, Richard Gomm in April 1998; could it have been a wedding gift?! At this time it had some 25,000 miles on the odometer. Gomm used it for some fifteen years, touring the UK, France and Spain. In March 2013 he sold it our vendor with a mileage of some 54,672 on the odometer. Today it stands at some 57,000 miles. It had a full service in 2014 at BMW at a mileage of 55,228 at a cost of £399.15. Sold with the V5C, V5, extensive MOT history, many service receipts, a pair of BMW panniers, Haynes manual , exhaust nut spanner, tool kit and a BMW Riders Handbook; it was ridden to the sale and the current MOT is until May 2020.
