| By all means buy the bike, BUT make sure it is cheap.
What you need to think about is how long you want to keep it for. The book value for a 97 r 916 is 3450 trade to 4850 retail. If you decide to sell it on it is nearly worthless to a dealer as he (or she!) would have to declare it to be written off (cat c or not) to a new customer. Looking at the pictures I would value it to be between 1500 to £2000, bearing in mind it has been rebuilt, would make a good track bike and you could pretty much get all your money back. What you wont get is the money you spend on it back so if you think that you'll need to spend a lot getting back to original maybe walk away.
I just bought a cbr600rr cat c damaged for £800, to put it into perspective.
Hope this helps.
P.S. would make a nice project though! | 
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