most unusual production bikes Archives

Ten Most Unusual Production Motorcycles (Part 10)

Please click here for Part 1 (Suzuki RE5), here for Part 2 (Honda CBX1000), here for Part 3 (Yamaha GTS1000), here for Part 4 (Suzuki Katana), here for Part 5 (Böhmerland), here for Part 6 (MTT Y2K and 420RR), here for Part 7 (Honda DN-01), here for Part 8 (BRP Can-Am Spyder), and here for Part 9 (Honda NR).

We’ve reached the final motorcycle in this collection. We’ve decided to leave out the older motorcycles prior to the 80’s and 90’s as they were too far back and most of the successful technologies and methodologies have been transferred to motorcycles in the following decades.

That doesn’t mean manufacturers have stopped researching and developing new ideas. Far from it, in fact. But manufacturers are more in tune to what the majority of potential buyers want these days to design bikes that don’t look totally out of this world, apart from a few.

Without much further ado, let’s check out this last bike.

BIMOTA TESI 3D

Truth is, any Bimota would be considered unusual compared to virtually any stock production bike, but that would mean all ten would be Bimotas in this article. Picking just one out from the Rimini, Italy-based company’s family isn’t easy either, like the 1998 SB8R and SB8 RS, DB3 Mantra.

For example, the YB4EI which come agonizingly close to winning the inaugural World Superbike Championship in 1988, ridden by one Davide Tardozzi. Tadozzi had won eight races that season but because of point scoring technicalities, Fred Merkel won on the Honda RC30 despite having just two victories.

Bimota only builds frames, chassis and other technologies around engines from other manufacturers. The first letter of a Bimota denotes where the engine was sourced from, for example: YB means Yamaha-Bimota, BB stands for BMW-Bimota, DB for Ducati-Bimota and so forth. As such, production is low volume. Only the Suzuki GSX-R1100 powered SB6 saw 1,144 bikes being produced from 1994 to 1996, while the next highest figure was just 600 bikes.

Bimota SB6 – Courtesy of totalmotorcycle.com

As such, one model, in our opinion which truly reflects upon that philosophy is the Tesi 3D which made its first appearance in 2007.

Remember we covered about the attempt to move away from hydraulic forks for the front suspension on the Yamaha GTS in Part 3? The Tesi was also developed in this vein. The concept of the Tesi differs slightly from the Yamaha GTS’s, however.

The Tesi 3D is the third iteration of this project, powered by the powerful Ducati 1098 engine. The engine is clamped between two machines aluminium plates, with all other components mated to these plates, including both front and rear swingarms.

The front swingarm mates to plate on both sides, with an Ohlins shock attached to the right in a cantilevered position. The handlebar’s shaft is connected to horizontal shafts on each side that steers the front wheel, for a hub centre steering setup.

Bimota is currently building the new Tesi 3D to celebrate their 40^th year, called the Tesi 3D 40 Anniversario (pictured here). Only 40 examples will ever be built.

BONUS UNUSUAL PRODUCTION MOTORCYCLE

How could we leave out the Kawasaki Ninja H2 and its variants? Unleashed by Kawasaki in 2015 to be the bike to conquer the world, it’s supercharged.

The track-only H2R produces 300 bhp, while the road-legal version pumps out 200 bhp. Kawasaki had just announced the H2 SX and H2 SX SE sport-tourer. Still supercharged but made practical for daily riding and touring. (Please click here to know more about the H2 SX.)

Ten Most Unusual Production Motorcycles (Part 9)

Honda NR

The 1992 Honda NR (often mistakenly referred to as the NR750) was the most expensive production motorcycle at the time.

Honda had pulled out of motorcycle grand prix racing in 1967, only to re-enter in 1977. Two stroke machines had taken over the entire field in their absence, but Honda has always preferred to develop and race four-stroke bikes.

Honda knew that they’d be beaten by two-strokes and there was no allowance for bigger capacity four-strokes to compensate. The rules had stated 500cc engines with a maximum of four-cylinders, regardless if they’re two- or four-strokes.

Honda engineers worked around this by creating a high-revving V-4 engine, but with oval pistons. The oval pistons looked like two pistons being joined as one (think of a burger oblong).

With two conrods and eight valves per cylinder (yes, eight, for a total of 32 valves!) the engine gave the impression of a V-8. The engineers hoped that the bigger piston area would provide a higher volume air/fuel mixture, resulting in more power.

Honda unveiled the NR500 (NR stands for New Racing) in 1978 but the bike only made its debut in the 11^th round (British GP) of the 1979 racing season. However, both bikes retired. The engine was overly complex. But Honda kept developing the bike and engine and came away with 130 bhp at over 20,000 RPM, matching the two-strokes.

Yet, the bike wasn’t competitive and Honda ultimately went on to develop the NS500 two-stroke tiple in 1982, ridden by Freddie Spencer, Marco Lucchinelli and Takazumi Katayama.

Still, Honda kept plugging away and came up with the NR750 endurance race bike. The technology was finally transferred to a road bike in 1992. Built in limited numbers, the NR (also known as the RC40) made 125 bhp at 14,000 RPM in the standard configuration. Priced at US$50,000, only 300 were built.

The NR featured many other innovative technology, including a single-sided swingarm, side-mounted radiators (a la NR500), and underseat exhausts, among other things. It’s also no secret that Massimo Tamburini was inspired by the Honda NR when he penned his iconic Ducati 916.

BONUS TRIVIA:

One of the engineers who worked on the oval piston project revealed that while trying to reduce the number of valves to the more conventional 4 valves per cylinder to improve combustion and power in the low- and middle-RPM range. That development led to one of Honda’s most famous technology and was first featured on the CB400 Super Four.

The VTEC.

So, the VTEC wouldn’t have been possible if not for the oval piston research and development.

Ten Most Unusual Production Motorcycles (Part 7)

Honda DN-01

Please click here for Part 1 (Suzuki RE5), here for Part 2 (Honda CBX1000), here for Part 3 (Yamaha GTS1000), here for Part 4 (Suzuki Katana), here for Part 5 (Böhmerland), and here for Part 6 (MTT Y2K and 420RR).

Certain parties weren’t happy about our recent review of the Honda CRF250L and CRF250 Rally. We called it as it was, “soft.” It has also to be said here that “we” here included Oh Kah Beng. So if you’re reading this, go ahead and tell off the legend if you’re not happy.

Honda CRF250L & CRF250 Rally Test & Review

Why did I open with the above “intro?” Because in that same review, I mentioned that sometimes manufacturers aimed for too many segments in one model and ended up with a product that’s diluted at best (read: neither here nor there).

Take this bike, for instance. Honda meant the DN-01 to be a cruiser. Or more accurately, a cruiser/sportbike crossover. And a big scooter.

Firstly, the DN-01’s bodywork’s weird in anyone’s book, and wasn’t appealing to either the cruiser folks or sportbike fanatics. The ergonomics also took a bashing as was the lack of wind protection at speed, needing the rider to to hang on using the handlebar.

Customers were also unsatisfied due to the ridiculously low load capacity of only 147 kg. That meant if each the rider and passenger weigh 75 kg, their total weight of 150 kg has already overloaded the bike by 3 kg. That’s without figuring in luggage.

Wait, what luggage? There isn’t any storage space on the DN-01!

The transmission, however, was a different story. The continuously variable transmission (CVT) – marketed by Honda as “Human Friendly Transmission” – uses a hydraulic pump which varied the amount of fluid being pumped, changing the gearing as demanded. (It may sound the similar to the DCT in the current X-ADV, VFR1200X and CRF1000L Africa Twin, but no it isn’t.)

However, that brilliant CVT was mated to a 680cc engine (sourced from the Shadow) which produced an wheezing 43 bhp, which (sort of) propelled the 268kg DN-01 from 0 to 100 km/h in 7.41 seconds, and a quarter mile in 15.41 seconds at 140.7 km/h. Top speed? 182.0 km/h. Yawn.

Adding insult to injury was the US$15,599 asking price in 2009.

The DN-01 was only sold from 2008 to 2010.

Ten Most Unusual Production Motorcycles (Part 3)

Please click here for Part 1 (Suzuki RE5) and here for Part 2 (Honda CBX1000) of the Ten Most Unusual Production Bikes series.

YAMAHA GTS1000

Fork dive – compression of the forks when the brakes are applied – has been something that gave chassis and suspension engineers migraine headaches ever since BMW featured the first production hydraulically damped telescopic fork on the R12 in 1934.

Fork dive is counter-productive; as little suspension travel is left to soak up bumps in order to keep the front wheel planted to the road. If the bumps are large enough or if there are multiple successive ones, the front wheel will start to hop as it runs out travel, causing loss of traction, instability and potentially loss of control. (Or a rolling stoppie!)

Besides that, most riders find it disconcerting when the forks bottom all the way down, leading to loss of confidence, leading them to either release the brakes and/or failing to turn into a corner.

Well, many folks decided it was time to eliminate front end dive, and one notable solution was presented by the ELF Racing Team GP racer in the late-70’s through to the late-80’s, ridden by one Ron Haslam. The single-sided swingarm front suspension removed shock absorbing and damping duties from the steering head, in the pursuit of making the front end more stable under extreme braking. Honda saw a potential in the program and started supplying racing engines to the team.

A designer named James Parker also saw the capability of the single-sided swingarm front suspension and went about designing his own, which he then named together with his company, Rationally Advanced Design Development – RADD.

His first prototype was based around a Honda XL600R engine and frame, donated by Honda USA, which he got a young dirt tracker and Superbike rider, one who will one day become a 3-time 500cc World Champion, to test ride it. He was Wayne Rainey.

Rainey was impressed by the handling and feedback of the front suspension. Honda Japan wasn’t interested, however, as they were already involved with ELF.

Parker went on to work on a Yamaha FZ750 next and the finished project named RADD MC2 was revealed at the 1987 Milan Motorcycle Exhibition.

Yamaha Japan got wind of the MC2 and began work on their own project, called the Morpho, without Parker’s approval. When Parker found out, he negotiated with Yamaha to license his designs before the Morpho was unveiled in 1989. But the project hit a roadblock as Yamaha has always outsourced fork production to contractors.

However, there’s light at the end of the tunnel for Parker’s RADD concept as Yamaha Europe demanded that Yamaha Japan build a new sport-tourer. That’s where the RADD chassis found a place.

The result was the GTS1000 in 1993. Besides the RADD front suspension, it also boasted other new technologies such as electronic fuel injection, ABS, and for the first time on a motorcycle, a catalytic convertor. The engine was lifted from the FZR1000, but detuned to 102 bhp.

The GTS1000 looked great and was generally praised by the media, unfortunately the price tag of US$ 12,999 put many potential buyers off as they felt the improvements and added weight did not justify the extra cost.

Plus the fact that Ducati launched the 916 in the same year, which overshadowed every single bike for the next two years, the GTS1000 included.

Please click here for Part 1 (Suzuki RE5) and here for Part 2 (Honda CBX1000) of the Ten Most Unusual Production Bikes series.

Ten Most Unusual Production Bikes (Part 2)

Continuing our unusual production motorcycles series, here’s the second instalment. (Please click here for Part 1.)

While most of the bikes on this list were a little too outrageous and tanked in terms of sales, there were a few that went on to become classics and icons. One of them was the 1978 Honda CBX1000, also known as the “Super 6.”

Honda was locked in an arms race with Kawasaki (also Suzuki) who slaughtered everyone with the Z-1. 10 years after the world’s first “superbike,” the CB750, Honda was on the warpath again and introduced the CBX1000 in 1978.

While multi-cylinder engines have been around for many years, the CBX1000’s engine was an air-cooled, DOHC, 24-valve, 1047cc, inline-Six. (But the Honda wasn’t the first production inline-Six, that honour went to the Benelli Sei in 1972. The Sei was based on the inline-Four Honda CB500, interestingly.)

The engine may look like an engineering monstrosity, but look closer and the careful considerations shine through in terms of minimizing the engine’s dimensions placement. For example, the cylinder block was tilted forward to lift the crankcase up higher from the ground. Similarly, the engine was only wide at the top while relatively shorter across the crankshaft. Honda’s engineers did so to avoid the critical items from scraping during full lean and or in a crash.

Weight was on the hefty side, as expected, tipping the scales at 272 kg, wet. But with 105 bhp on tap, the CBX1000 from blitzed the ¼-mile.

Cycle World ran a whole host of acceleration tests and found the production CBX1000 was in fact faster than the pre-production unit. In 1978, the test bike clocked a ¼-mile (400 m) time of 11.64 seconds at 188.72 km/h. A year later, they tested the production CBX and it blasted through the ¼-mile at 11.36 seconds, although the terminal speed was identical at 188.72 km/h. Top speed was 214 km/h. (The speeds may seem “normal” these days, but do remember that this was in 1978 – 79.)

Those performance figures confirmed that the CBX1000 was the fastest production motorcycle of its time and was immediately likened to the Vincent Black Shadow.

The Honda CBX1000 and its beautiful engine survive to this day, favoured by motorcycle customizers.

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