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CB77
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(Reminds me of the current best-selling book: "That Used to be Us")
There can only be one winner, however, and no matter what criteria we considered, Honda’s CB750 was our unanimous choice. This bike changed everything. The CB750 wasn’t an engineering breakthrough—inline-fours, disc brakes, electric start and quad-exhausts had all been done before. The CB750 was conservative, even, with just a single cam and two valves per cylinder, plus chain primary and final drive. The brilliance lay in its application, and the bold way Honda repackaged such exotic technology in mass-produced form, with all the kinks ironed out—then delivered it at a price and in a quantity that gave almost anyone access.
This was the first “modern” motorcycle. Modernism is defined by how humans use knowledge and technology to improve and reshape their world, and there is no better emblem of modern thought than Soichiro Honda. He utterly rejected the existing motorcycle industry’s provincial, cottage-industry traditions, replacing established ideas with cutting-edge engineering, technology and manufacturing technique. The CB750 was a direct result of this new process, and its success revolutionized the way motorcycles were designed, built and sold.
From the moment the public first laid eyes on it at the 1968 Tokyo Motor Show, the CB750 was an unqualified success. With its visually imposing inline engine and four gleaming exhaust headers, the CB750 looked like a street-legal Grand Prix bike. And with a legitimate 125-mph top speed, it had the performance to match its looks. By '73 Honda was selling more than 60,000 CB750s each year. The massive impact of the CB750 forever banished Japan’s former reputation as a copycat nation, capable of little more than mass-producing others' designs for a fraction of the cost. The CB750 forged a new reputation for the island nation as an indisputable source of the best engineering, design and technology in the world. More important to motorcycle enthusiasts, the CB750 acted as the archetypal Japanese superbike, kicking off an epic high-performance arms race that continues to this day. There would be no Honda CBR1000RR—nor Kawasaki ZX-10R, or Suzuki GSX-R1000, or Yamaha YZF-R1—if the CB750 hadn’t come first.
Mr. Honda was famously short with praise, yet even he couldn’t conceal his excitement after riding the CB750 for the first time. One former Honda R&D employee remembered the scene: “It was during final testing in the U.S. Mr. Honda happened to be there. He said, ‘Let me ride that thing,’ and just jumped on and blasted off across the desert. He was gone for nearly a half-hour. Everyone was quiet, and very nervous. When he came back, he just said, ‘What a terrific, terrific machine!’ then walked away, laughing. That was the first time anyone there ever heard any words of praise from him!”
Motorcyclist’s Motorcycle of the Century: the 1969 Honda CB750. What a terrific. terrific machine indeed!
Exotic and affordable, fast and reliable, capable and accessible, the CB750 was a magic bullet. This bike began the reputation for pragmatic performance that defines Honda today.
(I am a friend of one of the American Honda engineers who was doing the high-desert testing of the original CB750 before it was sprung on the unsuspecting world. He told me how terrified they all were when Mr. Honda showed-up unannounced at the test site, and took off on their test bike, for his own test ride. (Who was going to tell him "No"?) The longer he was gone, the more worried they got. There was great relief when he pulled back up on the bike, especially with his comments about the bike. As the article says, he was not one to pass around much praise...excellence was just an expected part of your job.)
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Mike Freitas
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Not giving away my age, but I remember seeing these at the dealerships back in '69. If I remember right, it had a msrp of $1395.00. To go back in time and buy a dozen or so....
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CB77
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Yes Mike, you are right. Actually, that $1395 MSRP was after a quick $100 price increase that Honda decided to apply, once they saw what a winner they had.
So they were $1295 for a while at the Honda dealership where I worked at that time. You're right, it would be nice to have about a dozen of them still in the crate.
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CB77
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I know I am going into much more CB750 memorabilia than most here will care about. But considering this bike's significance to Honda, it deserves it:
The CB750 test crew that was mentioned in the above article, doing final testing in the Nevada mountains and desert in 1968. (Yes, I know, they are not real impressive to look at, but they knew what they were doing)
The world's first glimpse of the CB750, at the Tokyo motor show of October 1968.
The all-conquering "Daytona Wrecking Crew" starring Dick Mann, who shocked the M/C world by giving the CB750 its first win, on its first race. March 1970.
An early Japanese CB750 home-market brochure
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P54
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The guy in the middle on the top picture is me, where are you CB77?? Do you remember me?
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MalcolmR
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Thanks for sharing fellas.
Enjoyed reading. Brought back memories.
Malcolm
:0
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FiSH-Chan
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CB77 wrote:
An early Japanese CB750 home-market brochure
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Looks so big next to the girl.
Thanks for sharing the stories, I enjoy reading it very much
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danielgr
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P54 wrote:
The guy in the middle on the top picture is me, where are you CB77?? Do you remember me?
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Are you serious or this is just some kind of joke?
Who are you P54? and.... Why do you call yourself P54??
:):):)
PS: as usual cb77, just keep it coming. Personally this is the kind of stuff I would expect a Honda enthusiast site to be populated with.
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Grace141
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CB77, thanks and keep right on going. The motorcycles of the '70s can be summed up fairly easily with the photos you've included here.
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reddragon_si
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I agree! It's great to see these nostalgic photos and learn more about this chapter of Honda's history. Having finally purchased my first motorbike back in Feb, it's always fun to see a cycle-centric post on a largely car-based forum every now and then.
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