Vintage Honda Scrambler Gets Restored

WATERBURY, CT – An old love such as a motorcycle can be an expensive mistress – especially when a full restoration is required.

Brian Normandin of Torrington, CT only paid $300 for his 1966 Honda 305 Scrambler. It was a year old when he bought it used for a price that was less than half of what the bike retailed for new. He’s now just spent “about $8,000” having it restored by Doc’s Motorcycle Parts.

The Honda got regular use by Normandin for more than 30 years. “I rode it up until 2000,” he recalled Friday, adding that it got relegated to the garage for good in 2003.

Along the way, it experienced off-road workouts and was repainted in 1970. “I used to take it through the woods,”Normadin said. After years of strenuous use and after sitting for 12 years, though, the Honda no longer looked good, but was still mechanically sound.

“You should have seen how it came to us,” said Mike “Mike Doc” D’Occhio of Doc’s Motorcycle Parts, who supplied the picture below. Normandin added, “The handlebars were rusting. It was in total disarray.”

Normandin dropped the Honda off in January, but it wasn’t until April that work began. “We got it fired up in less than an hour,” D’Occhio said, reporting that new spark plugs and fluids were all that was needed to get it running. “It started right up. It was amazing,” he said.

Then came the hard work. The frame got powder-coated red. The tins were painted silver. The handlebars, wheels, fender brackets and exhausts for re-chromed. “A lot of it was researching; getting all the parts in,” D’Occhio said.

Brian Normandin, center, enjoys his Honda with Lee Farley and Mike “Mike Doc” D’Occhio 

It was on Friday morning that the 70-year-old Normandin got to take it home. “Absolutely gorgeous,” he declared before rolling it on to a trailer.

Why did Normandin pay so much, especially considering that he has a 1999 Harley-Davidson Wide Glide for his daily rider. Chalk it up to affection and nostalgia or, as Normandin put it, a “late-life crisis.” Find memories can have a way of depleting a bank account.

Don’t look for the Honda to show up on Craigslist anytime soon. “If I would sell it, it would break my heart,” Normandin said.