Page 46 - VE Magazine - Issue 42

The allure of 1970s Japanese motorbikes. By Karyn Sparks
but none of them could escape the allure of a Japanese motorbike. My Dad went from a BSA Gold Flash 650cc to a Yamaha XS 750, which he then gave to my brother who traded it in for a Kawasaki Ninja! Kawasaki were the bikes used in both ‘CHiPs’ and the first Mad Max film... which no doubt heavily influenced my brother’s decision! Today, my husband still owns his Triumph Speed Triple, but also owns a 1975 Honda CB550 and a 1981 Kawazaki GPZ1100 custom bobber... all cluttering up the VEHQ!
But what is the big deal with Japanese motorbikes?
Well, British motorcycles would never be the same again after the Japanese appeared on the scene. Up until the first half of the 20th century European manufacturers, particularly the British, dominated the entire motorcycle industry. The very idea of a motorbike made by the Japanese would have seemed bizarre – but it was a very different world back then.
Japanese ambition
The exact point at which the Japanese motor- bike industry served notice on the British motorbike industry can be traced back to a letter of intent from Soichiro Honda to his em- ployees in his five-year-old engineering firm on 20th March 1954.
M
OTORCYCLES run in my family. (Yes there’s a joke in there somewhere but...). A very early memory of mine is the story Poppy (my gran- dad) used to tell me, of the time he’d built a motorbike and sidecar in the front room, only to realise after he’d finished that he couldn’t get it out through the front door! Nothing ever daunted Poppy, so he took out the front win- dow and got it out that way!
Both my Dad and my uncle rode bikes in the 60s as young lads, as did my brother and husband in the 1990s. They all had a love for British made bikes such as Triumph and BSA,
Below: Dad (left) and Uncle John in 1966 with Dad’s BSA Gold Flash 650cc and John’s Triumph T21 350cc. Right: Jez’s 1975 Honda CB550
He announced his intention to manufac-
ture a bike good enough to compete in, and
win, the Isle of Man TT. “Now that we are
equipped with a production system in which I
have absolute confidence, the time of oppor-
tunity has arrived,” he wrote, “I have reached
the firm decision to enter the TT Races next
year.” An event that Honda’s researches had
identified as the premier world event. “Never
before has a Japanese entered this race with a
motorcycle made in Japan, he wrote, “It goes
without saying that the winner of this race will
be known across the globe, but the same is also
true for any vehicle that completes the entire
race safely. It is said, therefore, that the fame
of such an achievement will assure a certain
volume of exports, and that is why every major
manufacturer in Germany, England, Italy, and
France is concentrating on preparations with race bike, with its ‘Swiss watch’ engine and
all its might.”
Honda claimed: “I will fabricate a 250cc
(medium class) racer for this race, and as the representative of our Honda Motor Co, I will send it out into the spotlight of the world. I am confident that this vehicle can reach speeds exceeding 180 km/h. Even a superior aircraft engine has a power output of about 0.55 PS per litre, but this racer will have nearly double that power, at 1.00 PS per litre. When this engine is completed on the basis of our company’s crea- tivity, it will be no exaggeration whatsoever to say that it will rank at the world’s highest levels of engineering.”
Soichiro Honda’s declaration of his am- bition to win this demanding race brought a great deal of interest from all over Japan. His
0406 / October-November 2018 / ve
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