Silver wing £6495. Suzuki Alto £5995

Silver wing £6495.
Suzuki Alto £5995

Silver wing road tax: what is it? £89? I'm not sure. OK it might be £50 ish
Suzuki Alto road tax: Nil.

Silver wing: 2 Wheels.
Suzuki Alto: 4 wheels.

Silver wing: 0 doors
Suzuki Alto: 4 doors

Silver wing: Air conditioning. open your visor.
Suzuki Alto: Air conditioning. turn the knob / press the button.

Silver wing: 2 helmets in the boot.
Suzuki Alto: 4 helmets and 4 suitcases in the boot.

Silver wing: 2 seats
Suzuki Alto: 4 seats. Or 5 if you are the manufacturer with an imagination.

I saw a Suzuki Alto on the forecourt of Asda today, priced at £5995 and it struck me that its odd that they can make a car for less money than a scooter.
Of course that's not strictly true, they can't make a car for less than a scooter.The truth is they can sell a scooter for more money than a car because they make fewer of them and car competition is greater than scooter competition. But it makes you think, doesn't it?
And why is a car free of road tax and a scooter which is much more environmentally friendly is not?

Here follows a barrage of why a Silver Wing is better than a Suzuki Alto. I'll duck. I'm not saying a Suzuki Alto is better, just that its strange that it costs less.

Check what it costs to replace a set of tires (tyres) if you don't do any work except write a check (cheque)!   

gasgas, I found it hard to believe that any car could be found at that price. So my friend Google helped me. So for others that have a hard time believing here is a link I found. So I now believe it even if I don't understand it.  

5995 Pounds=$10,177 (U.S. dollars) if I did the conversion  and multiplication correctly.  My 4th grade education could be wrong.      

There's nothing wrong with the Suzuki Alto, just the traditional US mindset you need a huge SUV/ 4x4/ Pick Up/ V8/Station Wagon/ type car.  

The Alto also gets 64mpg!!!!

Something is going wrong somewhere!!!

So fuel conservation and environmental protection are why we ride SWings? If that is the case, one might be better off selling the SWing and buying an Alto (which, for those who don't know, is not available here in the US).

Or is the point that SWings are more expensive than Altos? I can think of more than a few motorbikes which are more expensive than some cars. Pick any Harley dealer. Large Japanese cruisers. High-end BMWs, Guzzis, Ducatis, Triumphs, Japanese sport-tourers.

My point is simply that if one reduces the riding to mere dollars and cents and you find yourself riding a motorbike based only upon the money and efficiency, you might want to either sell the bike and buy a car or rethink the whole matter to see if there is a value to riding beyond the money. Just a thought.

Not a direct comparison to be sure, but thought provoking. Here a new Goldwing goes for 25-30K US. There are lots of automobiles available for less than that. But the GW is a pinnacle for touring bikes not the econo model. And in its class the Silver Wing is a premium scooter; fuel injection, ABS etc.

And what do I need to store 4 helmets for???   

My point really was that in theory scooters should be cheaper than cars, with half the engine, half the transmission, less than half the bodywork and so on. A Suzuki car is obviously not the pinnacle of the car world, but then neither is it the pits. I could live with a Suzuki car (and probably a Suzuki scooter as well) but I was surprised to find that a half decent small car is less costly than a scooter.
When I was designing something for Rover cars here in the UK, they fitted it to what they called The Brochure Car. That is the one they use in the promotional brochures and TV advertisements. They fit every possible extra to it, and it is hand painted to Rolls Royce standard (i.e. a lot better than the one you are going to buy!) so the paint is 7 layers deep with 5 layers of lacquer on top, polished between each coat. When it was all launched and the Brochure Car was dumped in a corner of the company car park I offered to buy it off them. They said no, it will be crushed because everything on it is a prototype, and the production model would have all the niggles ironed out. They went on to say 'Besides that, if we were to sell it we would have to register it as a car and pay VAT (15%) and car Purchase Tax on it. We can make another car for less than that tax'.
So now we know how much a car costs to make. VAT and car tax on a £6000 car will be about £1500 so that is more than the car costs to make.
So can anyone guess how much a scooter costs to make?
The item I made for Rover cost me £25 to make. I sold it to Rover for £75. The price the dealer paid to Rover for it was £125 and the customer paid £375 for it. I sold them by the thousand.