1993 Brough Superior SS 100
SOLD: $338,000 – 31/5/2026 – Donington Auctions
A 1933 Brough Superior SS 100 has set the highest price paid for a motorcycle at auction in Australia for more than a decade. The Donington Auction result of $338,000 also set a new benchmark as the most valuable British motorcycle ever sold here at auction.
Ed’s note: This excludes the $1.3m (US$929,000) paid for the Australian-owned Ehret Vincent Black Lightning. That price was achieved in a Bonhams Las Vegas sale in 2018.
The Brough sale was a new Australian auction record for the legendary British marque. One of just seven hand-built in 1933, this was the first time a Brough Superior SS 100 had been offered at auction here in over three decades.
Made famous as the motorcycle model ridden by Englishman Colonel TE Lawrence – better known as ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ – the Brough Superior SS 100 built up a legend for being the ‘Rolls-Royce’ of motorcycles.
Just 283 were ever made, each built to order, powered by a 1000cc V-twin engine in a double-cradle frame, and sold with a guarantee of 100mph-plus performance.
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1980 Kawasaki KZ1300
SOLD: $15,300 – 21/5/26 – Donington Auctions
In 1979 the idea of a 1300cc, six-cylinder, 120 horsepower, 296 kilogram motorcycle was extreme.
The Z1300 was the most complicated motorcycle available and more powerful than many cars at the time. The heart was the liquid-cooled double-overhead camshaft engine. The engine assembly alone weighed 130kg, more than some 125cc motorcycles, with undersquare dimensions (62 x 71mm) to keep engine width to a minimum. The crankshaft was a forged one-piece type, with plain bearings and a Hy-Vo chain driving a jackshaft for the clutch, camshafts and oil pump.
Everything about the KZ1300 was on a large scale. While conventional in design, the tubular steel frame was massive, with a 45mm backbone and pressed-steel reinforcement. The twin shock absorbers bolted directly to the crown-wheel housing and brake-caliper carrier and the front fork was a 41mm air-assisted leading axle type as a tourer, but it was a far more capable motorcycle than any paper specifications indicated.
This extremely original 1980 KZ1300-A2 is a US import.
