Back in the 1990s, the taste of the bikebuying public in the UK was most certainly that of the sports machine: bikes like GSX-Rs, FireBlades, CBR600s and the like were flavour of the month.
Later, naked versions of most of the 900, 1000 and even 750 and 600cc sports machines would be released but for many in the UK, we were starved of the 400cc four-stroke machines. These were bikes often of higher spec than the 600cc bikes sold over here, being as they were kept for the Japanese domestic market. Hardcore sporting inline fours and V4s were sold alongside each other, and in Honda’s case – in the same showroom, having as they did a range of CBR400RRs and VFR400RRs... Both inline and V4s would also ‘get naked’ and it was often the case that here in Blighty the only way we could sample these miniature delights was via the many ‘grey import’ establishments that popped up all over the UK from the late 1980s into the 1990s…
Therefore, Honda CBR400RRs became CB-1s or CB400s, Kawasaki ZXR400s became the Xanthus and Suzuki’s sports GSX-Rs became Inazumas and Impulses… And more besides: the Japanese were blessed with a wider range of machines than we…
So, here we
