Andrew Longley is a man who loves his classic mopeds.
As a teen he longed to get on two wheels and although it would take decades for him to fulfil the dream of owning a Yamaha RD50, in June 1986 a 16-year-old Andrew rode off from Pete Hutchings Motorcycles in Deal, Kent, on a brand-new Honda MT-5.
He and the Honda spent a year together, the off-road styled moped taking him everywhere. At 17, he traded it in for a Yamaha RXS100 and that should have been the end of the story… until they were reunited almost 30 years later, as Andrew explains.
He says: “I bought the MT-5 in June 1986 and sold it in July ’87. In the years in between I knew it was still a survivor and, fast forward to October 2013, it popped up on eBay. It was local to me, so I messaged the seller and asked him questions about it. He told me who the first owner was, as he had a copy of the original V5, and it had my name and my parents’ address on it!
“I was in total shock for 10 minutes, as I realised it was my old moped, but I also knew that I was going to have to box clever because as soon as I told him my name the price is going to go up. I hit the ‘Buy it now’ and went around at the end of the day with my £600 cash. He’d already half written out the invoice and said: ‘I just need your name’. When I told him it was Andrew Longley he just stood there until I said ‘I am that first owner’. But the deal was done and I’ve now become great mates with Bob. I am thankful to him. I’m the first owner and I’m also the fifth owner!”
Andrew’s MT has been sympathetically restored, while he’s been lucky past owners had held on to much of the original documentation, including the first two tax discs. Selling dealer Pete Hutchings was also able to look out the original bill of sale, ensuring the story of the little Honda’s early years remain intact.
The MT reunion came a few years after he bought and restored a 1987 Yamaha RD50MX, the bike he lusted after as a kid. “The RD is the bike I wanted to have but it was too expensive,” he continues. “I was only on YTS money – £32 a week – and that was with £4 a week travel allowance. My dad took out a Lombard loan to help me buy the Honda.”
Andrew’s RD has been lovingly restored, being standard but for the Micron ‘spannies’ no self-respecting teen would be seen without back in the day. He continued: “It needed a restoration when I bought it in 2011, and still needs some work doing, as all bikes do. Parts are hard to come by… but show me another one!”
The MX and RD aren’t the only two ‘peds in Andrew’s fleet. The self-confessed moped addict owns a number of other sporty 50s, including a Kawasaki AR50 and a Honda MB-5, which gets regular run outs. “The MB-5 is a lovely bike and is now tax and MoT exempt. I ride it quite a bit, and the others get started up regularly too.”
Andrew isn’t the UK’s only classic moped nut, as his popular Facebook group proves. He set up the ‘Retro Mopeds – ‘70s-90s’ group in 2018 and it now has over 13,000 followers. They took the step from the virtual to the real world back in October, where they were one of the most popular stands at the Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show sponsored by Carole Nash in Stafford. Fittingly, Andrew’s MT-5 was Highly Commended by judges, while fellow page admin Dan Jones’ immaculate Honda MBX80 (yeah, we know it’s not technically a moped…) took second in the ‘Best 1980s Bike’ category.
It's hardly a surprise that these incredible mopeds proved such a draw at Stafford. Those little bikes represented a first taste of motorcycling for many of us, with Andrew summing up the feeling better than we ever could: “When I look at my Honda MT50, with its red frame and unmistakeable ‘80s styling, I don’t just see a small commuter bike from the past. I see a time capsule, my youth, my freedom and proof that sometimes, the bikes we thought were long gone really can come home again.”
