Around Christmas 69 Gene Stoneking traded in his BSA for the first cb750 to be sold at grand motor sales Galesburg Illinois. He also bought a Honda minibike for his son Gary. Charlie Rice was a young tech there and he got the job of assembling it from the crate. He also assembled a 9,000 vin blue/green diecast which he still owns today. Gene took delivery in early January, he didn't live far and may have ridden it home. Gene kept it nice, when he put it away for the winter he sprayed WD40 on the chrome and rubbed blue coral wax on the paint. As time went by Gary grew up and occasionally rode it to high school. One day Gary and his friend took it apart to chrome the engine covers and misc other parts. His Dad was not impressed.
The bike ended up stored in a yard barn, Gary moved away, Gene passed away and Tom Campbell that had always serviced the bike bought it from Gene's wife. Tom left it as is, didn't title it or bother to get it running. He owned a cbx and Goldwing and ran a part time bike shop. Tom let me take pictures of it for reference so I could re-assemble my diecast 750 properly. Again time passed, Tom fell ill and passed away. I wanted the bike but couldn't bring myself to ask about it.
One day there was an estate sale of Tom's shop so I armed myself with what I thought I'd need to buy it and apparently Tom never told anyone else it was special. The bidding was hot for a while but I outlasted them all. It looked awful because the WD40 had collected dirt that appeared to be pitts and corrosion. Under the wax and oil it was beautiful. It had tall handlebars and broken sidecovers so I robbed them from my diecast and got her running again. Charlie Rice, the guy that assembled it new cleaned the carbs at his shop, 40 years later.
I returned the tall handlebars and red metallic grips To Gary last year.
