In 1977, David Silver got a Honda SS50 moped – it was the last year of unrestricted mopeds for riders just 16 years of age in the UK. That two-wheeler made him a fan, and starting his Honda parts business in 1986 made him a part of the Honda family.
He started collecting, with the idea that he’d eventually open a museum. During a visit to another amateur collector’s trove in Pennsylvania, the Brit got the chance to purchase the 125 bikes the American had gathered, and his museum aspirations hit the fast-forward button.
He’s in the process of building a proper home for the bikes in Suffolk, it should open later this year. There will be everything from the first Cub F engine that people could attach to bicycles in 1952, to two examples of the CB92 Benly Super Sport that showed how fast and how good a 125cc bike could be, to the first Fireblade that dropped in 1992 – our CBR 900RR, to the original Honda Dream. Honda says it could be one of the finest collections outside the company’s museum in Japan.
You can watch Silver tell his story in the video above, and there’s more on what’s he’ll have in an article in Honda’s Dream magazine.