It’s hard to tell, but there’s actually a scooter in there. A scooter you might recognize as the Honda Express, with a 50cc engine putting down all of 3.8 horsepower. Honda created a very unsuccessful three-wheeler by putting a fiberglass body around the scooter, and called their creation the Honda Caren.
1983 Egli Red Baron
Honda made quite the splash back when it introduced the CBX to the world. The six-cylinder engine was clearly the star of the show, though some people felt the frame/handling wasn’t up to the task.
1972 Honda CL350 K4 Scrambler
The scrambler variant of Honda’s best-selling motorcycle (at least as of 2003), the Honda CL350 differed from its’ street-based brother as it gained the high scrambler pipes and a 19-inch front wheel. This particular example is a beautiful low mileage example adorned in Candy Panther Gold (what a name) paint.
1973 Honda CB500 Racer
Here’s some vintage racing goodness – a Honda CB500 Four that’s been converted into a racer that competed in F1 CCS’s Vintage Classes in 2000. It was also raced in 2001 and 2002 in CCS, WERA, and AHRMA, and won LW and HW Vintage classes. After that it sat until 2011 when it was sold and got some street duty. …
Great Deal – 1998 Honda SuperHawk VTR1000F
This bike is 16 years old but somehow looks spotless. If I ever bothered buying a new bike, it’d be in worse condition than this in 2 months! Kudos to the seller, who’s been able to keep this Honda SuperHawk in immaculate shape. I like to think of it as an easier-to-live with RC51. The best part? It’s being sold …
1991 Suzuki RGV250 VJ22
Nowadays, the mention of a Japanese 250 usually makes on think of the Ninja, a solid learner bike that doesn’t normally excite the senses like other current motorcycles. But 20 years ago, Suzuki built a 250 two-stroke race-replica of its Gamma V-2 racer – good for over 50 horsepower in the narrow power-band. The Suzuki RGV250 was born, and it …
2011 Honda CB1000R
I love naked bikes and when I was in Paris I couldn’t help but notice quite a few examples of the Honda CB1000R, a bike I almost never see in the US. What’s hard for me to understand is why it sold so poorly here in the US.
1980 Kawasaki Z1R KZ1000
Post Sale Update: After 28 bids on eBay, this Z1R sold for $12,100. The Kawasaki Z1R was the brainchild of Wayne Moulton, known as the “Father of the Japanese Cruiser.” His belief was that a solid motorcycle could be moderately tweaked to form four versions, one of which is a sport-tourer. So he took the KZ1000 and turned it into …
Beautifully Restored – 1976 Yamaha RD400C
One of the true giant-killers in motorcycling history, the Yamaha RD400C was given plenty of praise by reviewers when it first came out. It had plenty of power, it didn’t weigh much, you could handle it with relative confidence, and even the brakes were decent. All that, and the price wasn’t bad either. Nearly 40 years later, expectations have changed …
Unassuming – 2007 Kawasaki Ninja with Yamaha RZ350 Engine
File this under ‘things I never thought I’d see’, but reader Zack B. has found someone selling their Kawasaki Ninja 250 that’s had the two-stroke engine from a RZ350 swapped in! The work looks great – with the exception of the modified DG pipes, I don’t think anyone would notice (at least at first glance) that this isn’t a stock …
Baby RC45 – 1996 Honda NC35
Post Sale Update: This NC35 sold for the BIN of $9,500. The RC45 is a bike of legend, but it’s also out of the financial reach of most motorcycle enthusiasts. That’s why I’m excited to feature the RC45’s baby brother, the Honda NC35. Only officially sold in Japan, grey market imports occasionally made it out the UK and rarely made …
Great Deal – 2013 Suzuki V-Strom 650 with Sidecar
I sometimes wonder if I’m best serving you by showing you incredible bikes with giant pricetags, or more mundane bikes that are great buys. I still don’t know what the correct answer is, so for now you’re stuck getting a little bit of both. Here’s one of the latter – a Suzuki V-Strom 650 with matching DMC M72D Sidecar. The …
1975 Rickman Honda CR750
The Rickman brothers made a name for themselves by building incredible frames to put (usually) Triumph motors in, but in the 70s they also expanded to building frames for Japanese bikes like the Kawasaki Z1 and the Honda CB750. This is one of the latter, which can be summarized from a quote from the Rickman brothers themselves:
1992 Yamaha YSR50
The Yamaha YSR50 was the most common of the rare 50cc sportbikes that came from Japan in the late 80s and early 90s. An instant classic, the YSR50 was always street legal, but is now primarily used in spec racing.
1998 Honda CBR600 F3 Smokin’ Joe’s Replica
One of my favorite liveries of all time is the Marlboro McLaren F1s of the early 90s – probably in part due to my obsession with Ayrton Senna. Nowadays, a livery featuring a tobacco company is pretty much out of the question. I don’t even smoke, but I have a soft spot for the cigarette liveries that we will never …