Ex-Chris Walker and John Crawford factory Suzuki BSB bikes put up for sale

Two of the most iconic British Superbikes ever produced are currently up for grabs on eBay, with the owner selling the duo to help fund a café and museum dedicated to Suzuki’s grand prix heritage.

Priced at £118,500 for the set, the bikes in question are the factory Clarion Suzuki GSX-R750s ridden by John Crawford and Chris Walker during the 2000 BSB season, which saw Walker locked in a year-long duel for the title with GSE Ducati’s Neil Hodgson. 

Despite Walker holding a 12-point advantage going into the final race of the year, Hodgson took the title, after the Suzuki let go on lap 17 of 22. Walker finished the season on 414 points to Hodgson’s 422. Teammate Crawford finished in eighth with a tally of 166.

The machines for sale here are both owned by 46-year-old serial Suzuki fan, Dean Morrice, who purchased the Crawford bike back in 2006 and completed the collection with the Walker machine in 2015. 

Speaking to MCN earlier today, the Scottish collector said: “I just wanted Chris’ bike because I remember that era and that weekend at Donington and I was there. John Crawford is a Scottish rider and I’m from Scotland and it was nice to reunite the bikes together.

“They’ve been together since 2015 and I’ve had them at a number of events for Suzuki themselves, MCN, Chris Walker dealer days and so on,” he added.

Despite no serious offers yet, the eBay listing has been up for less than three days and has already amassed 83 watchers and 3737 page views. The security engineer chuckled: “I’ve been selling stuff on eBay for years and you don’t get those kinds of numbers!”

Once sold, Dean plans to use the money to start a café-come-museum on the west coast of Scotland for the rest of his Suzuki racing memorabilia, which ranges from classic race suits, to full fairings from a number of historic Suzuki GP bikes, including a set from Kevin Schwantz’s 1993 500GP championship-winning RGV500, and a set of chromed fairings used by Alvaro Bautista at the 2011 Misano MotoGP round.

“I was just collecting it for myself, so I thought ‘I need to do something with this’,” he explained. “I’m looking forward to it. This will be a different chapter in my life. I will be sorry to see them go, but it’s for another project in the future, which is still with Suzuki, which I’m quite excited about.”

Alongside owning the bikes, the purchaser will also receive a large collection of memorabilia, including team clothing that was not available to the public, the original pit walling for Crawford’s side of the garage, magazines, every BSB and WSBK programme from 2000 that these bikes competed, certificates of authentication and more. To view the listing, visit click here.

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