MAYBE I DID SOMETHING RIGHT FOR A CHANGE

To a large degree, my career as a hobby "expert" has been largely a question of DO WHAT I SAY rather than DO WHAT I DO. In other words, over my nearly four decades in this hobby, my role as an editor/writer has let me see trends develop, even though I wasn't inclined to take advantage of the trends myself.

For example. one of the first stories I wrote for the old Special-Interest Autos magazine was a very early GTO piece. However, I never collected GTOs myself, since I prefer "flathead" Pontiacs. Therefore, I did not ride the GTO craze up to the top or benefit from it the way I could have.

As I grow older, this may be changing. Last year, I started collecting motorcycles. I purchased a vintage bike, as well as two Japanese models that seem to have the wonderful combination of relatively low price and growing collector appeal.

Over the weekend, I caught up with the well-known dream car collector Joe Bortz (the same guy that told me, at the first Harrah's Auction, back in the '80s, that dream cars were a great investment for the future). As most people know, Joe made millions on the dream cars. Now, he says he has purchased over 130 motorcycles in recent years, most of them Japanese models. Joe Bortz has always been great at predicting future hobby trends and he has me thinking I'm doing the right thing, too.