possibly 1995/6 Hei Hei

[llamedos]

That was the only number on the BB other than Made in USA
Will have a better look when in bits to see if anything else on it

 

[Anthony]

That was the only number on the BB other than Made in USA
Will have a better look when in bits to see if anything else on it

Sorry, what I meant was I don't think there is anything on the frame that identifies the year, not that you might have missed something. I think you can fairly well rely on it that the decals are a reliable guide that it's a 1995 bike. The 95 catalogue is in the archive now and the Hei Hei on there looks identical.

 

[andrewl]

I think most of them were bought as frames, so you hardly ever see one that looks like the catalogue bikes. Of the nine photos in my modest 1999 collection, only one has the spec kit.

There was one for sale on eBay last year which was all original North American spec, and I've seen another in the rest of world spec too. I also have the Superfly fork from one, so there must have been a few complete bikes sold.

 

[Pipmeister]

Andrew says that means it's the 828th size 19 they made, but unfortunately it doesn't tell us the year!

Apologies if I’m taking this thread away from the original subject but…
Has anyone any idea of the quantities produced each year of the Hei Hei and/or the King Kahuna? I can’t actually provide a reason for being surprised at a total of 828, but I am!

 

[Anthony]

Andrew says that means it's the 828th size 19 they made, but unfortunately it doesn't tell us the year!

Apologies if I’m taking this thread away from the original subject but…
Has anyone any idea of the quantities produced each year of the Hei Hei and/or the King Kahuna? I can’t actually provide a reason for being surprised at a total of 828, but I am!

If they got to 828 at some point in the fifth season of Hei Heis, it implies an average of something like 170 or so size 19s p.a. If size 19s were something like say a quarter of the total (there were six sizes, but 19 was more popular than most of the other sizes), then we're looking at around 700 p.a. total production. I think that's just about credible.

I've just bought a 1998 Orange E4 (£51 is more my kind of price) and we know that the production of E4s was 200 p.a. People feel that these are rare on this site, but around 1% of all those built are owned by RB members and they were never exported. We may have less than 1% of all Hei Heis if 700 is to be believed, but not that much less, and Hei Heis are distributed all over the world.

So I don't think 700 p.a. is out of the question at that time. I'll bet it got less and less as time went on though. The rise of the suspension fork, and to a lesser extent disc brakes, made it less and less essential to have the best possible frame, so I don't think it's a coincidence that titanium and hand-build makes declined as forks became better and better.

 

[Pipmeister]

Thank you Anthony, very much appreciated.
My understanding is that the King Kahuna was the more rare of the 2 models - at least in the earlier years of its production.

 

[Harryburgundy]

Looks like this has sold via BIN at 1K.....mmm..arse...was hoping to buy it for the frame and headset. Never mind.