There are fewer and fewer shops like Morrie’s. It is a place full of old motorcycles. By choice. It is a place where they work on old motorcycles almost exclusively. By choice. It is strange that it is housed in a modern building rather than someplace old with character. From the outside, you would expect the latest from Japan and Europe.

inside it might be sometime in the late 1970s. The showroom was full. Machines for sale included gems from the sixties and seventies. Morrie’s has a lot of British bikes, but they also have a good sampling of others. A lovely Benelli Sei, for example, and a Ducati Monza 250. A nice Excelsior Henderson 4 was wedged in a row of machines. There is a healthy sampling of BMWs as well. A few slash 2s and a slash 5. The majority of the bikes though are British. BSAs and Nortons abound, but are joined by machines from AJS, Velocette, and Triumph. A nice Metisse occupied a place of prominence in a showroom window. There are very few restored machines present in the showroom. Most are well-patinaed drip-pan-needing but sound mechanical motorcycles offered at reasonable prices.

Favorite machines include a lovely Rickman Triumph, a Velocette MSS. The one we would have ridden home though was a beautiful Norton ES2. Talking with Morrie himself was interesting. Here is a guy that just loves the old machines and has decided to try to make a living selling and servicing them. During our visit, customers were there from nearby Chicago, and far away Iowa. Both offered unsolicited testament to the quality of work and the great customer service. There are not a lot of shops like Morrie’s around, but the few that remain should have our deepest gratitude if not patronage.

One Reply to “Morrie’s Place”

Leave a Reply to max The Marquis Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *