Race winning superbike could be yours for less than £70,000

If you’ve ever fancied owning a race-winning superbike, this could be your chance, with an ex-V&M Racing Honda RVF750R RC45 up for sale.

At £64,995, it’s hard to call it ‘cheap’, but for an ex-racer – and ex-race winner at that – it’s not a bad price The Bike Specialists have put it up for.

This particular model was first raced in 1995, a year in which it finished third in the Senior TT in the hands of Steve Ward and in which Terry Rymer took it to victory in a British Championship race at Brands Hatch.

Its final year of racing came in 1997, when, in the hands of Michael Rutter, it finished second in the Formula 1 TT and took a victory at the North West 200.

The point is, it’s a bike with pedigree, as you might expect of something to come from the V&F team of Jack Valentine and Steve Mellor, even if they were perhaps better known for their tuning prowess of 600cc Supersport-spec engines.

As for the RVF750R RC45, it was the successor to the famous VFR750R RC30, winner of the first two World Superbike Championships with Fred Merkel in 1988 and 1989.

The RC45 itself took the title in 1997 thanks to John Kocinski, a title which would prove to be the last for a 750cc four-cylinder bike in the series, as two titles for the 1,000cc Ducati came in 1998 and 1999, followed up by another Honda title – but this time with Colin Edwards aboard the 1,000cc V-twin Honda VTR1000 SP.