Page 21 - Sept 2024.cdr

Top 10 Best Honda CBR Models

The Honda CBR is back on top, so we’re picking out the historical best of the bunch…
The Honda CBR is back on top, so we’re picking out the historical best of the bunch…

due to being able to largely ignore the cosmetics of its
engine and box-section steel frame by having an all-
enclosing ‘jelly mould’ fairing).

Popular with racers and road riders alike and
publicised via Honda’s one-make ‘CBR Challenge’
series, it wasn’t, contrary to common belief, the first
Japanese supersports 600 – that honour going to
Kawasaki’s 1985 GPZ600R – although it was far more
successful in establishing the class.

ith Honda’s revived supersports, the
CBR600RR, back on top of the UK
Wmiddleweight sales charts, there’s never
been a better time to celebrate all things ‘CBR’ – after
all, with models ranging from the ‘90s best-selling
CBR600F to the superbike king Honda CBR1000RR
Fireblade and even the hyperbike CBR1100XX Super
Blackbird, it’s a model designation that’s likely touched
all of our lives.

‘CBR’ stands for ‘Cross Beam Racer’, meaning the
sportier, racy versions of Honda’s ‘Cross Beam’ 1989 Honda CBR1000F
CBs (Cross Beam meaning a transversely It’d be easy to include the CBR6’s big brother, the
arranged, usually multicylinder engine, although original 1987 CBR1000F, here, but it was so fugly
some confusion suggests it was initially meant to we’re not going to. Instead, we’re going for the
mean ‘City Bike’. substantially restyled version launched in 1989 which
was arguably the supreme heavyweight sports-tourer
of its day with a creamy, powerful 130bhp motor, all the
comfort you could want and bags of comfort and
Honda class. It’s also the CBR with which Honda took
the ‘all-enclosing bodywork’ concept to the ultimate
degree – even fairing-in its silencers!

1987 Honda CBR600F
The first European CBR, also known in the US as the
‘Hurricane’, was launched alongside the bigger
CBR1000F in 1987, remained on sale until 1990, was
Honda’s first liquid-cooled, inline four-cylinder, fully-
faired sports bike and proved a big hit for its all-round
performance and versatility and decent value (partly Fireblade creator Tadao Baba with a 1989 CBR900RR

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