Production costs of these bikes often result in eye-watering price tags, they afford both designers and engineers an opportunity to express themselves. These limited edition machines will rarely make any profit with demand kept to an exclusive minimum, but for the lucky few these machines can be an investment, often going up in value some years down the line. Track bikes have become a lot more popular with all the top manufacturers having a track-only bike available for purchase these days, these machines are by nature track-oriented, but still remain street-legal.
10 Ducati Desmosedici RR: 1500 Units
Although this is by some margin the least rare limited edition bike, it is just impossible to leave it off this list. Back in 2007, Ducati won their first MotoGP championship, it just so happened they were already in the process of making this street-legal version of the bike Casey Stoner rode to victory.
It was the first real racing replica of an actual GP bike, and as much as $72,500 is a fair amount of money for a motorcycle, owning a machine like this suddenly became a possibility no one had ever thought of before.
9 Honda RC213V-S: 250 Units
It is by all rights the modern equivalent of the Desmosedici, with Marquez looking unbeatable on the race version of this machine for years.
Getting your hands on one of these bikes now will likely cost a lot more than the original $180,000 sticker price, with all 250 bikes spoken for.
8 Bimota Tesi H2: 250 Units
For most, the Kawasaki H2 is already more than enough motorcycle. The Tesi, takes that incredible engine and plops it into one of the most magnificent carbon fiber sculptures.
It is weird, beautiful, and revolutionary. Although you might get a bit saddened that so few will get made, it is just a miracle that anything like this even exists.
7 Honda NR750: 200 Units
It might well be the most significant homologation specials, and will certainly go down as one of Honda’s greatest machines. This pseudo V8 (oval V4) cost substantially more to build than they could sell it for. $60,000 in 1992 was more than most were willing to shell out, especially when you look at how good the CBR900 was, and it cost a fraction of that.
The NR’s significance may be so much more than its aesthetics, with incredible engineering going into its development, but its design served as inspiration for the Tamburini masterpiece that is the Ducati 916.
6 Bimota 500 V Due: 150 Units
As beautiful as it may seem, some gremlins lie beneath the interesting exterior; Bimota designed the complex GP-inspired engine from the ground up, and it was a complete disaster. Although innovative, the advanced fuel injection system simply didn’t work.
Pretty much all repairs and in some cases modifications had to be done under warranty. We suspect Bimota would have dearly loved to have made more of these bikes, but after having to buy back several, it ended up being a limited edition.
5 Bimota SB8R: 150 Units
With a name that sounds more like a computer program, you would be forgiven for thinking there isn’t much to expect. Oh, how wrong you would be though, it takes the good bit from the Suzuki TL-1000 (its engine) and gives it a brand-new frame and some choice carbon bits.
Learning from their previous missteps with the V Due, this machine is pure class.
4 Norton F1 Sport: 66 Units
Most people are quick to write off the Wankel engine as a bad experiment in both the automotive and motorcycle world, with no company really able to make a reliable version. It was (and in some ways still is) an attractive engineering project that in principle had a lot of promise.
This is a bike that really wasn’t intended to be a limited edition motorcycle, but since only 66 were made before the old Norton hit the financial ropes, it became one.
3 Ronax 500: 46 Units
For rather a long time, the entire motorcycle community was captivated by large displacement 2-strokes, the last GP machine being the one a young Valentino Rossi rode to overall victory in 2001.
If you want a machine that is as close as you will ever get to that incredible Honda NSR 500, this bike will be pretty high up on your wishlist. Although there are a few key differences, it is a very clear recreation.
2 Bimota Tesi 3Ds: 45 Units
Like the new Tesi, it has the unique center hub steering, only with an older, less powerful Ducati-sourced engine. Considering how stunning these bikes are and how few were made, they are not as expensive as you might think.
The modern H2-powered Bimota Tesi costs around $76,000, you could have one of these arguably more beautiful and certainly rarer bikes for $45,000.
1 Lamborghini Design 90: 6 Units
With so many one-off bikes around, this was not planned to be one of those. This was actually a project that they had every intention to follow through with.
It was, to say the least, not exactly well-received, so it was limited to a more limited run… 6 bikes, one came out of hiding for the first time in a while recently, but didn’t make the reserve at auction. It promptly went back into hiding.