Serial 1, the e-bike division of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, may have come up with a profitable new business model for selling e-bikes if they can repeat what happened today. Start with a stock model, hand it off to a creative customizer and then auction it off. That’s exactly what Serial 1 did with their Mosh/CTY model. The Mosh/CTY normally sells for $3799 but after it was transformed into a Schwinn Stingray-ish custom, it raked in $14,200.
The winning bid seems kinda crazy for a bike that is easily duplicated. Take $14,200, buy three stockers and use the $2,800 that’s left over to transform them into the same bike that sold for $14,200. Making matters worse, if multiple people make replicas, whoever dropped the $14,200 today is going to be left with a bike worth way less than what they spent. It is not like this Mosh/Chopper was ridden by Peter Fonda, jumped by Steve McQueen or recovered by Paul Reubens. It is just a modified $3,799 e-bike.
It will be interesting to see if Serial 1 can pull off more auctions with such favorable results (for them).