Sorry Sam - if you've had a Bike Bug bfore, then yer far more experienced than I lol this is my first and I'm only just starting to learn about it
Thing about bikebug.net's $400 price tag is they're marking up for both the retail value, but sentimental as well - "classics" always cost more regardless of what it may be... it also seems as if those guys are fabricating new replacement parts of their own design and offering rebuilt "like new" motors... which is sweet, 'cause I'm prolly gonna need some parts at some point and the prices on those ain't bad at all
If you'd like - I can move this to Swap and Shop and tack on "Wanted" to the title, perhaps one of our members has one forgotten and would be willing to sell, you've already started the ebay search I see - but there's a chance that if ya call bikebug.net they may have used ones running but not rebuilt for less - stuff like that often never makes it to a webpage *shrug*
Last but not least - it was quite generous of you to give a friend yer Bike Bug and I commend ya for it w/o a doubt - but I'd keep in touch in case they decide not to use it, tire of it, or w/e. While a sweet, simple setup it's not exactly a performance monster lol, they may decide to move on to bigger & faster and need some pennies fer performance parts or somethin' lol
killer, (I hope the ebay guy doesn't read this lol) even if it's not running, it's still jus' a simple two stroke & quite easy to rebuild - fortunately it seems parts are readily available and even reproduced, which ofc means there's quite some demand for these vintage engines. While ofc yer right, you can prolly get a modern friction drive new for the same or less - yer overlooking the marketable "groovy factor" of old engines...
TBH (and no offense to anyone) I'm really a chain drive junkie myself, I'd not even have a friction drive if it weren't for said "groovy factor"