Honda Cb750 Four

HONDA CB750 FOUR

WORLD'S COOLEST BIKES

In 1969, Honda shocked the world with quality, refinement and performance in the first mass-produced multi-cylinder superbike

MASSIMO TAMBURINI

I STILL REMEMBER THE INCREDIBLY INTENSE emotions that the original Honda 750 Four generated, down in my guts, when she was unveiled at the Milan Show in 1969.

She was like a vision, a dream come true, the bike I never thought a motorcycle company would dare put into production and make accessible to the general public. In one second, that superb motorcycle wiped out all of my previous benchmarks, mostly the celebrated British Twins on which I had focused my passion in my younger years. She was beyond comparison to anything manufactured in Europe, let alone in Italy, where, in the post-WW II years and well into the 1950s and ’60s, motorcycles were still intended as a means of low-cost transportation.

And they sure looked cheap: rough, unfinished engine castings; poor-quality and unreliable electrical components. Even the most celebrated and prestigious Italian motorcycle of those days, the Laverda 650/750 Twin, was plagued by problems. Sure, there was the MV Agusta 600 Four, but it was priced out of sight, its handling and performance were not worth the money and its build quality was the same as that of much-cheaper Singles.

The Honda 750 Four was shining all over. Engine castings were perfect, polished, some

elements even chromed. The paint job was immaculate. The electrical components looked like they were borrowed from a spacecraft. I still remember the switches—ah, those switches! “If they fitted switches out of the Apollo 5,” I told myself, “imagine what they did down in the engine compartment!”

Indeed, that Honda 750 Four represented a dramatic revolution in the motorcycle world—a bike that was worth going to any length to own. At that same Milan Show, MV Agusta unveiled its 750 Sport. The style and graphics were striking, with a redwhite-blue tricolore gas tank shaped like that of a celebrated MV sportbike of the 1950s. But the components were still from the same “Italian standard” of those days, and performance was well below what the daring look promised.

Great quality down to the last detail, elegantly styled and high-tech, Honda’s 750 Four won the hearts and minds of enthusiasts. In my opinion, the second-greatest bike is the NR750, the Honda built around an oval-piston V-Four. Technology had reached its apex, but the production version was tame compared to the concept bike that Honda had showed the year before, allowing the original 750 Four to keep her scepter.