Posted on December 1, 2022.

There’s something immensely appealing about the idea of a barn find, isn’t there? The idea that a solid machine has just been left sitting somewhere due to circumstances completely out of its control—and that you’re the person who can lovingly bring it back to life is downright enticing. Granted, it takes a certain kind of person who’s into a fixer-upper lifestyle, but if that’s you, then you know what I mean. 

Like a magnet of sorts, every once in a while, you’ll hear about some utterly amazing barn find cache of vintage motorcycles. Just when you think there can’t be any barns left to find things in, another one appears—almost as if by magic. Here at the end of 2022, British bike shop Hitchcocks Motorcycles has put together one of the biggest such collections we’ve seen in a long time. 

It’s a combination of two collections that they’ve imported from the U.S., and it’s absolutely massive. How massive, exactly? All told, Hitchcock’s says there are at least 180 bikes, as well as over 50 tons of spare parts. In fact, getting it from the States to their location in Solihull took five massive sea cargo shipping containers to hold it all. That’s a whole lot of barns! 

Now, as you might imagine, it’s going to take quite a bit of time and effort to go through and accurately catalog everything that’s there. Still, as you can see in this video, there’s a lot for vintage bike fans to get excited about.

Machines made by Triumph, Norton, BSA, Indian, AJS, Royal Enfield, and more are plentiful in this collection. The folks at Hitchcocks also spent time walking the aisles of bikes with the camera to give us a good look at it all, so chances are good that you’ll spot something new and interesting each time you watch this video. 

While the collection of bikes is impressive, the absolutely unbelievable parts haul is also a whole lot to take in. You can see in the video that things are at least roughly sorted into piles of like parts. Wheels and tires are in one big box, cylinder heads in another, gauge pods in another, and so on.

There’s likely a lot of good stuff in here for project bike builders, and Hitchcocks says it’ll be posting the lot up on its website for sale over time. We’ll include the link to their website in our Sources so you can keep an eye on it if you’re interested in what you’re seeing. 

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