I’ve featured Bexton Craft Motorcycles before here on Bike-urious – once for a wild FZR1000 with a Suzuki GT750 motor in it and once for an awesome custom GT750 cafe racer. This time, he went with a Honda four-stroke for an interesting tribute build.
I’ve also featured a few CB-1s over the years, though I finally got a chance to ride one for the first time earlier this year and I see why it’s a cult classic. In stock form, Cycle World called this “a great motorcycle that never found an audience”, and with hindsight, it’s easy to see why. A healthy 55 horsepower was enough to take this 400 pound bike up to 118 miles per hour, and the upright seating position lent itself to comfortable commuting or canyon carving. But American buyers at the time felt that bigger was better. This bike is obviously not stock – the seller acquired it with 2,750 miles on the odometer and then took it down to the frame before turning it into a tribute of the sportbike which used Honda’s inline-four 400cc engine of the time, the CBR400RR (not sold in the US). Highlights of components include 2001 Yamaha R1 forks/triple clamps, Honda CBR500 front brake master cylinder, Renthal 50mm clipons, OEM VFR400R subframe and seat, replica VFR400R fairing, OEM CBR400RR dash, period “Yoshimura style” exhaust, and much more. The seller has covered roughly 800 miles since the build – I love hearing that because it hopefully means he addressed any issues that came up – I always have concerns when someone “restores” a bike and then sells it before breaking it in.
It’s an interesting offering – it’s not a 400RR but those are quite hard to find in the US in good shape. Over at Iconic we recently sold a couple that we imported from South Africa but they were both projects that needed lots of work, and they sold in the ~$4,000 range. This appears to be ready to go but it’s not really a 400RR, so I’m curious to know what people think: is it close enough to the real thing? Would you put this in your collection?
Find this custom CB-1 for sale in Easley, North Carolina for $8,800 here on Craigslist.
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