Ever wonder why Honda builds better motorcycles?
“Because they have to,” said master machinist Les Barker, who has spent more than 20 years repairing and racing Honda motorcycles at his Little Engine Service in Vancouver, Wash.
“Yamaha has musical instruments. Suzuki builds weaving machines and is one of the largest manufacturers of prefabricated housing. Kawasaki has heavy industry. Honda builds power equipment, cars, generators, lawn mowers, tillers–all powered by small engines,” he said. “They don’t have another business to fall back on. They excelled because they had to.”
Japanese industrial powerhouse Honda celebrated its 50th anniversary in October–the same time it sold its 100 millionth motorcycle. With strong retail enterprises in developed countries and manufacturing agreements with Third World governments, Honda dominates the worldwide motorcycle business.
The company employs 100,000 people in more than 70 plants in 40 countries that can produce 10 million motorcycles a year. At peak production in the 1980s, it made more motorcycles in one hour than the revered English company Vincent turned out in 28 years. Last year, Honda made about 4 million motorcycles.
And Honda still leads the American market, despite the resurgence of Harley-Davidson. According to the Motorcycle Industry Council, Americans bought 356,000 new motorcycles in 1997, up from 330,000 in 1996. Honda had 27.9 percent of the market; Harley-Davidson 27.1 percent; Yamaha 13.6 percent; Kawasaki 13 percent; Suzuki 13 percent; BMW 1.7 percent and all the others 3.7 percent.
“The industry grew about 20 percent last year, including ATVs,” said Honda spokesman Peter Ter Horst. “This year, it’s a little stronger.”
Ter Horst reckons founder Sochiro Honda himself was the key to the company’s success.
“He was the most profound factor. He brought a new style of thinking and process into an economy that was devastated by war. . . . As Japan rebuilt, it was more difficult to make inroads into protected markets–like autos for example.”
Honda’s worldwide competition remains intense, said Ter Horst.
“Everything made today is high quality,” he said. “And there’s more competition in specific segments. Look at Yamaha, their sportbikes and cruisers are significant competition. And look at the Harley success story? Ten or 15 years ago that would be hard to imagine.”
At Yamaha, spokesman Scott Heath thinks such competition stimulates the industry. “We started in 1955 but Honda has been the dominant force. They’re very strong competition but we enjoy the rivalry.”
It’s difficult to recall that 50 years ago, Soichiro Honda was far from certain of success when he decided to make motorcycles instead of textile machinery and developed the 98-cc Honda D-type–the first “Dream.” It was the first Japanese motorcycle made entirely by one manufacturer. Before that, parts from different makers would be assembled.
Grumbles about the motorcycle’s two-stroke motor led to the four-stroke 146-cc E-type Dream in 1951, and production rose from a dribble to 130 units a day. That year the Japanese industry made 11,510 cycles.
The end of the Korean war and the loss of GI buyers who went home brought economic crisis to the company that had borrowed $1 million to buy new tooling. Employees worked around the clock, without holidays and sometimes without pay to keep the business afloat.
Honda made steady progress until the arrival of the 50-cc Super Cub in 1958. Cheap to make and impossible to kill, it achieved Third World domination; later ones were called Passports. More than 20 million have been sold.
In the early 1960s, Honda reached into the U.S. with the ad campaign “You meet the nicest people on a Honda.” The company was astute enough to decide how many units it could build, create the market and sell them.
“It was all about quality,” said Barker. “They wanted to build something better–not so good that it would embarrass the competition (Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki) but clearly better.”
Honda was deciding on distributors in the U.S. and a famous story has them talking to Jack McCormack, the West Coast sales manager of Johnson Motors which imported English Triumphs. Triumph had been selling bikes in the U.S. since the 1930s and its elegant twins had carved out a significant niche.
“Six thousand units in a the first year is pretty optimistic,” McCormack told the solemn Japanese executives. They spoke among themselves. “No, 6,000 a month,” said the translator. So Honda established its own distribution system.
The CB77 305-cc Dream arrived in 1963. “It had to be a low-unit profit for them,” Barker said. “They were worried about making the best product and letting the profit sort itself out.”
The CB77 blew 500-cc British bikes into the weeds technologically. The engine had full-pressure lubrication, high-pressure die casting that didn’t weep oil, a cast iron “skull” in the cylinder head that held the valves (so you couldn’t drop a valve seat) and such luxuries as electric start and flashing turn signals.
“Nobody could afford that level of quality now,” said Barker. “It’s the equivalent of a Messerschmitt 109 (the fighter that was the backbone of the Luftwaffe in WW II). It was made much better than it had to be to produce the stock level of performance.
“The CB77 head was machined to accept ball bearings for the camshaft, so any lubrication failure wouldn’t destroy the head. That’s not the case today.”
The CB77 was followed by the CB450. With its humped tank, the “Black Bomber” wasn’t handsome but it had dual overhead cams, previously seen only on grand prix bikes. The bike was banned from production racing until organizers could be convinced it was just a production bike. It soldiered on for three years, with dual-sport versions such as the CL450 Street Scrambler while something bigger was developing.
When the CB750 debuted at the 1968 Tokyo Motorcycle Show, it stood the motorcycling world on its ear. At $1,495, it was about $300 cheaper than the British Triumph and BSA triples and offered the first production disc brake, 67 brake horsepower and an overhead cam 4-cylinder engine. It was largely unchanged for 10 years, by which time the British motorcycle industry had largely disappeared.
But at the time of the 750’s introduction Honda was still best known worldwide for the little “step through” Super Cub, just one notch above a moped. The 305-cc Super Hawk and CB450 were earning grudging regard but bikes over 500-cc remained the benchmarks. British and Italian 650s and 750s were the “muscle car” end of the market–style and technology leaders with attitude.
“Honda’s back was to the wall with this bike. It had to succeed for them to be a worldwide force,” said Barker.
Smaller 350-, 400-, 500- and 550-cc 4-cylinder bikes also were offered but never caught on. “They cost so much to make, there wasn’t any profit in them and people preferred the 750,” said Barker.
The Gold Wing appeared in 1976 as an ungainly 1000-cc roadster. The 130-m.p.h., flat 4 was initially dismissed as a “two-wheel car” but proved to have staying power. It took six years for Honda to fit the bike with fairings and bags, and engines grew to 1100-cc, 1200-cc and finally the 1500-cc 6-cylinder version in 1988, which boasted a reverse gear.
Honda closed out the ’70s with the CBX in 1979–a 1,000-cc version of the company’s 6-cylinder racing engine. Its dual overhead-cam engine stretched two feet across the frame. Few bikes could beat the CBX’s 11.75-second quarter mile and with a top speed of 140 m.p.h., it was a tour de force (though hard-riding owners would regret the narrow tires).
The ’80s brought a change of direction, as Honda embraced the water-cooled V-4 engine, moving weight back to the center of the machine. The 1983 VF750F could hit 137 m.p.h. and won the Daytona superbike race 1-2-3, but the camshaft chain drive proved to be its Achilles’ heel. When cams started failing as well, VF was dubbed “very faulty.”
It wasn’t until the VFR750 was introduced in 1986 that Honda solved the problem by gear-driving the camshafts and changing the oil system. That bike is still in production as the VFR800 and is generally considered to be the world’s best sport-tourer.
Honda reverted to a 4-cylinder cross-frame motor for 1988’s 600-cc, 144-m.p.h. Hurricane, which developed into the F2, F3 and F4 and now can do 160 m.p.h.. In 1992, the CBR900RR mixed 600-cc size with the performance of an 1100-cc machine at the expense of being light and twitchy–124 horsepower and 170 m.p.h.
Honda’s latest speed dreams revolve around the CBR1100XX, the Blackbird, the first street bike to top 180 m.p.h. Since then, Suzuki’s 1300-cc Hayabusa has been clocked at 199 m.p.h. and Kawasaki is readying a ZX12 for the assault on 200 m.p.h.
HONDA SAMPLER
If you are in the market for a Honda, here are a few used ones to consider:
– Commuter: 1980-’82 CM 400-450 cc–Cruiser style makes for low seat, electric start, front disc brake optional. $500-$800
– Vintage: 1969-’77 CB 750– Reliable, though electrical improvements can be made. $1,000-$2,500
– Classic: 1979-’82 CBX–An engineering tour de force. Always draws a crowd. Stunning and fast but buy good tires. $2,500-$5,000
– Sportbike: 1988-’93 CBR600–
Great performance, excellent handling, brakes. $2,000-$5,000
– Tourer: 1981-’87 Gold Wing– The 6-cylinder came out in 1988. 4-cylinder bikes can be bought cheaply–often from people who don’t ride any more. $1,500-$5,000
