My wife came home from work one day and told me that one of her work colleagues had offered her a motorcycle if she wanted it! Her colleague had discovered her/our interest in bikes and "rather than have it go to waste," as it was just sitting in his shed rusting away, he had said to her "come and get it, you can have it". Well, I was dubious, and especially so when the only info he could supply about the bike to her was that it was a Honda 750, "a rare model", and it needed a bit of work... I already had three bikes, I didn't really  need another one!  So, I left it for a number of weeks and promptly forgot about it. However, on the 2 July 2005, because Bill was resigning from my wife's workplace, we hired a trailer and my wife and I headed out to his place at Pirongia to pick the bike up, as this would be the last chance to do so.

After the usual pleasantries, we headed to the shed to look at the bike. I have to say, I was not too impressed with what I saw... I was expecting to see an early to mid '80's DOHC Honda or some such, not the ragged, rusty, 1970's SOHC that leaned forlornly on its side stand before me... it had a 4 into 1 exhaust, dents and large rust spots on the tank, all the chrome was rusty, there was a huge tear in the middle of the seat, the rear tyre was flat (the groove down to the canvas in the middle of it was a giveaway to what had happened) and the paint (black at some stage) on the engine was all faded and oxidised. It was not a pretty sight! To further add to my initial misgivings, Bill proceeded to jump on the kick starter saying "she still turns over". Unfortunately, "she" proceeded to NOT turn over and as we began to push it out of the shed toward the trailer we discovered the next problem... it would hardly move! The brakes were "binding" and it took the three of us to muscle it up and onto the trailer, I tied it down, we thanked him,  and made our departure.

Back home and in the garage, I was under no illusions as to the enormity of the task ahead as I noted other things in need of repair/replacement... such as no clutch cable - no throttle cable(s) - no rear indicators - no rear fender. The fork ears bottom part had been torn off (this is where the front indicators would have been mounted originally - they were now ridiculously mounted either side of the headlight bucket), the alternator cover was not original (as it was not painted black) and it had a badly patched hole in it. The rear brake light lens was broken, the handlebars were bent and everything was generally dirty and crudded up. Just used and abused as old bikes often are...
On the plus side, I noted that it had Comstar wheels, Suzuki air shocks at the back (Kayaba's), twin discs up front with a disc at the rear and it still sported both side covers (although one was painted and the other was not). The front mudguard was still in fairly good condition, and the exhaust headers, whilst rusty, did not seem to have any holes/dents etc. Another plus, I guess, was that  it was more or less complete.