Million-dollar Grand Prix racer among top sellers at Bonhams auction

May 07, 2026

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Window-shop enough motorcycle auction lots, and you’ll recognize a recurring cast. There are the Vincents and Brough Superiors. The four-cylinder Indians and the wartime Harleys. White-tired Hendersons and prohibition-era Beemers.

While these usual suspects usually fetch top dollar, they aren’t usually going up against championship-winning Grand Prix bikes. That was the scene at the Bonhams Spring Stafford Sale last week, where a 1965 MV Agusta 500 cc GP race bike sold for £967,000. If you only speak U.S. dollars, that’s over $1.31 million (at today’s exchange rate).

A front three-quarter view of the 1965 MV Agusta GP 500 sold at the Bonhams Spring Stafford Sale. — Mike Hailwood captured the 500 cc Grand Prix title aboard an MV Agusta in 1965, but there’s no telling if the million-dollar MV sold at the Bonhams auction was ever raced by him, due to an absence of documentation. Bonhams photo.

For context, that total is nipping at the heels of the most expensive motorcycle ever sold, a 1915 Cyclone V-Twin that demanded a final bid of $1.32 million at Mecum’s Las Vegas 2025 auction. There’s good reason the MV now finds itself in the Cyclone’s company. According to the Bonhams listing, the bike “must have been raced by either Mike Hailwood or Giacomo Agostini or possibly both of those riders over the course of the 1965 season.”

John Surtees mounted on a 500 cc MV Agusta that was recently sold at a Bonhams auction. — John Surtees previously rode the auctioned MV Agusta at motorcycle events such as Spa Francorchamps Revival and Goodwood. Bauer Media photo.

Furthermore, seven-time Grand Prix champion and former MV Agusta rider John Surtees purchased the retired race machine in 1986. In the years to follow, he extensively paraded the bike at events before selling it to a private collector in 2005. Although a period of inactivity currently leaves the MV unfit for riding, Museo Agusta Director Enrico Sironi confirmed the bike’s authenticity. That might help explain its seven-figure price tag. It wasn’t the only ex-GP racer sending bidding paddles skyward, either.

The second-most expensive motorcycle sold at the Bonhams Spring auction was a Suzuki RG 500, but unlike the lot-topping MV, it came with detailed records. Ridden by Barry Sheene during the 1977 season, the race bike helped propel the Brit to his second and final Grand Prix title.

En route to his 1977 500 cc Grand Prix championship, Barry Sheene snagged a Swedish Grand Prix win and a Dutch TT runner-up aboard this auctioned RG 500. Bonhams photo.

What the RG shares with the MV is that it too isn’t in running condition, as the Suzuki remains in the state it was last raced in over 45 years ago. That was hardly a deterrent for bidders, though, as the one-of-a-kind prototype still demanded £506,000, or around $688,000.

A close-up of the Suzuki RG 500's two-stroke engine. — Sheene also rode the pictured RG 500 in non-GP events at Oulton Park, Brands Hatch, and Donington Park. Bonhams photo.

The two 500s may have topped the Bonham’s pile, but they weren’t alone. Among the auction’s six most expensive bikes, four were former Grand Prix racers, a Peter Hickman-piloted BMW S 1000 RR Isle of Man TT bike, and a Honda RC213V-S GP replica. So much for the usual suspects, huh?