Hi Folks,
I’m guessing that this may be an emotive subject but here goes:
During the summer I bought an LM1000 which had been mildly cafe racer’d. It came with all the original plastics, tank, brackets, lights etc in a box. The fairing is a dual headlamp which I have never seen on a stock bike.
My question is this: Should I keep the cafe racer look, chop the frame and make more major mods or is this rare enough to warrant restoring to original or selling on to someone who wanted to?
The twin headlight fairing is probably a “Sprint” one. They did after market Guzzi fairings.
The later Le-Mans models are not so collectable as an original Le-Mans 1 so I would say do as you please. Saying that, in my opinion not many home custom jobs improve on the original factory look.
I would suggest that you keep it as it is. There are plenty of “original” ones out there but it is the personal changes and modifications that I find interesting. I remember reading an article by Titch Allen of the VMCC on this subject and his view was that it is a shame to remove all of the changes and not retain the bike’s history. All of my bikes have been modified, some only slightly but all for the better!
The fairing is indeed branded by Sprint, is it well regarded?
The issue for me is that I would chop the at the rear to get the look I like, as it kicks up quite sharply. That then really means that there is not any going back from there.
All good advice though, does anybody think there is a market for the parts as shown or should I just stick them storage?
Sprint Fairings certainly are well made & the twin headlights is a good upgrade. A mate had one for a Spada & he did say it weighed a ton.
There’s always a market for used parts. Unless you have a feeling you might want to change the look again in the future. But you won’t be putting the old seat back on!
I had one, it was quite good. Didn’t weigh that much as I remember, and I thought it was a wee bit more flimsy than the factory Spada one. Maybe. Had twin 5-inch Cibié H4 headlamps which lit up the road like anti-aircraft search lights. Stonkingly good.
The side panels and rear tail unit look like they came off a late Le Mans 1000 SE (Mark 4). These are pretty rare on the road now. The panels should be quite valuable therefore, although it seems you don’t have the original cockpit fairing. The red seat is also quite rare although it looks like it might need restoring.
I have never seen one of these with the Sprint fairing, so if you restore as is you will have a very rare bike. I also think the Mark 4 SEs were the best Le Mans of all from a riding perspective (not necessarily a universal view, but mine was definitely better than my current Mark V). They had a close ratio gearbox.
Would be interesting to know if you have the original 16 inch front wheel or if it was changed to 18 inch at some point. They might have made the change at the same time as putting the fairing on.
