POWNAL, Maine — Memory can be a powerful motivator. It can lead people to take trips back to their hometown or places visited years before. It can inspire artwork, literature and music. And of course, there are endless stories about times gone by.
For John MacDonald, memory drove him to buy a machine he had loved as a kid. That decision has led him to a whole new career, as a buyer and seller of old, three-wheel all-terrain vehicles.
“I had one brand new in 1986,” MacDonald said, as we stood in his immaculate garage looking over a 1985 Honda 350cc three-wheeler.
The machine looked as if it had just rolled off the showroom floor. There was no wear on the tires, no scratches and no trace of gas or oil.
He leaned over the big machine and gently took hold of the handlebars.
“For me, when I sit on this thing (which he did not), when I get in this position and look at it again, all these memories flood back in of what I used to see and feel.”
MacDonald says it is that long-ago thrill of riding the early ATVs that has inspired collectors to want them now — and pay astronomical prices to own one.
“I’ve sold some this year, not this model but other models, for close to $40,000.”
The price of memory can be steep.
Part of that value lies in their age and the relative scarcity of machines in the pristine condition collectors want. MacDonald says Honda invented the first of those three-wheelers in the 1960s and the machines were called ATCs back then, short for all-terrain cycle. Honda, he explains, held an exclusive patent for the first ten years, then other manufacturers got into the market and 4-wheelers were also introduced.
In 1988, because of growing concern over injuries from the three-wheel machines rolling over, the federal government banned the manufacture and sale of three-wheelers, and the industry moved exclusively to four wheels.
That helps make the old Hondas rare — especially ones in showroom condition.
MacDonald grew up with the machines, but says as a teenager, he became more attracted to snowmobiles. His working career included both, though. MacDonald retired in June after serving 25 years as a Maine Game Warden.
He says he had no idea there was a world of collectors until about 12 years ago when he decided to buy a used Honda three-wheeler online. He then bought another, and a year or so later decided to sell them.
That, he says, was a turning point.
“I put it on the internet and people went crazy," MacDonald said. "At that time, I sold one for the highest price eBay had ever gotten for a three-wheeler. And it sold to somebody in Dubai."
A high price and overseas interest got his attention, "and it just opened up this whole new idea that these things are incredibly valuable," he said.
MacDonald was hooked and began buying, selling and sometimes repairing the old machines before alerting the collector world.
When retirement from law enforcement came around, MacDonald says he had no doubt what his next career would be. There are enough collectors in the U.S. and abroad to keep him busy searching for, locating and then selling the best of the old three-wheelers. One of his favorite customers is collector Wayne Schmeeckle from Colorado, who has a large collection of four-wheel drive cars and trucks, alongside 20 gleaming ATVs, all in a special collection building.
“We are into collecting and look for best of the best type items and that’s what drew me to John, because he had such an eye for detail and knew where the best stuff was,” Schmeeckle said in a telephone interview.
MacDonald has become a highly knowledgeable and passionate searcher for the best machines. He says collectors seek him out, sometimes even asking him to serve as a broker for a sale they want to arrange.
The ATVs he says, look beautiful, just like when they were new.
But the machines are never started or ridden. Most, he says, don’t even have oil or gas in them.
They are museum pieces, static displays in a collector’s assemblage of things they love, cars or trucks or three-wheel ATVs that, for many, recapture the thrill of riding free so many years ago. Those memories are so powerful that collectors are willing to write big checks to get the rare, little-used and untarnished display pieces they covet.
For MacDonald, his own, current ATV is a beat-up, 30-year-old four-wheeler.
“These are more versatile, but as far as fun goes, not nearly as fun," he said.
Fun, he says, was being a kid, riding those early ATCs.
Nowadays, fun is finding the best ones no matter where they are, then finding buyers who want them.