Saturday, December 11, 2021

1979 Honda CBs for 1980



In 1980, the CBX was out of reach, these were the options for a sporty streetbike from Honda. I looked and looked at that CB750, Still good looking bikes today, whether in black or in silver.





11 comments:

rats said...

Uh huh, uh huh. One glance at, one ride on, a CB400 and you, too, will be hollering "Red-hot gobs of horsepower!" Until you go down beneath a flurry of flailing pool cues and are silenced, perhaps for good.

JP said...

Hunter...? Is that you ?

rats said...

No, but he left me these red-hot gobs in his will. Want some?

JP said...

Bless him, but no thanks... Your ticket, your ride :-)

Mister G said...

As I recall, that 400 was pretty mediocre, and the 3 valve engine had valve train issues...

rats said...

'Bout all I know is that nobody loved it.

Kind of a good-looking bike, except for the dumpy engine and whale-size seat. Instead of suggesting red-hot gobs of HP, it hollered "I'll take you to work and back."

Mister G said...

Exactly. It was part of that brief period where 400s were the starter bike class, In our town, the clear winner at that time was the Yamaha 400 Special.

Anonymous said...

750F: 540 lbs (with full fuel) and a high center of gravity.


Don in Oregon

rats said...

Dear Leader G.: To your knowledge (including hearsay), was the Yamaha Special functionally better than its broadly sedative 400cc contemporaries? (I hated all the Specials great and small for their gross, clearly committee-designed "factory custom" styling. But my superior taste never let me ride any of em. My loss, though I neither repent or repine.)

Mister G said...

From hanging around with the guys that rode them back then, the fourstroke twins were broadly the same. Impromptu drag races came down to the least-incompetent launch and shifting. The king of the 400s was the RD400 (with worn and ratty Kawa 400 triples maintaining their street cred.)
I too despised the whole "Special" styling trend and the Suzukis were worse than the Yamahas. The XS650 was the best looking one in my book.
https://progress-is-fine.blogspot.com/2012/06/special-yamaha-650.html

rats said...

Yeahp, nice (if portly) bikes, the 650s.

Perhaps when they foresaw a glut of factory customs (there's a fine oxymoron), Yamaha brought out a nearly British-looking Heritage Special (I think it was called). Same bike, but no longer embarrassing to look at.

Seems like every bike in the f.c. genre had a seat to accommodate a pachyderm (and child). Maybe the stylists had the impression (largely correct) that every North American weighed 600 pounds.