Elvis Presley is, for many, the most iconic individual artistic figure of the last century. Logically, it is not something that everyone shares, but there is no doubt that it revolutionized music and that despite not leaving the United States in its 42 years of life, it transcended the borders of its country to become a global icon.
But regardless of whether or not he was the most iconic figure, whatever the colors, what is certain is that Elvis had a passion for vehicles that was out of place. It is well known that throughout his life he had a multitude of cars, motorcycles, karts… even an airplane that, by the way, was sold not long ago and which has become a kind of truck-museum.
Anyway, we are not going to talk about the rest of his toys, but about a special motorcycle for Elvis Presley that is now for sale. It’s not a motorcycle that he owned, and you actually have to have some faith to say it’s the bike in question, but the pieces of the puzzle seem to fit together.
To do this you have to travel back in time to 1967, when Gary Lockwood bought a 1964 Honda CL72 Scrambler. And you might wonder what Elvis is doing here, well, Lockwood had been a friend of Elvis for some time and when the king of rock saw the motorcycle he fell in love with it.
So much so that, as the story goes, Gary decided to give it to Presley for a while. There is no graphic documentation that confirms that Elvis ever had it in his possession and there are no official records, but there are different documents and correspondence that seem to confirm that the story is real.
Good news? You can still have the opportunity to get Elvis’ motorcycle
What is certain is that the motorcycle belonged to Gary Lockwood, which would be reason enough to consider it a cult motorcycle, but it is also a special machine in its own right. And the Honda CL72, whether Elvis drove it or not, is a special motorcycle since it had a 247 cc twin-cylinder engine that produced around 24 HP.
We are talking, therefore, about an amount of power that is not outstanding, but it had enough performance, lightness and reliability to get Honda to establish itself in the United States at a time when there was a lot of suspicion of anything that was not British, Italian or, obviously, American brands. So, regardless of the history of this specific unit, which came up for auction on Bring a Trailer, it is a model worthy of collecting in its own right.
Even so, it seems that history has not finished convincing, because the highest offer that has been achieved during the time that the auction was open was 14,555 dollars, just under 12,700 euros at the exchange rate, which was not enough to reach the reserve price.
So, with a little luck, if you are interested in the motorcycle, you will soon have a new opportunity to get it and take a little piece of Honda history and, of course, Elvis.
