1975 HOMDA CB500 FOUR
I remember it well. All the armchair experts … belay that. All the barstool experts of my acquaintance were in agreement that Honda were completely correct to launch their awesome CB750 to top their late 1960s range. This was, they all agreed, the dawn of a new age. My goodness. A new age. Maybe Aquarius had something to do with that. Those were strange times. But I did not care at all about the CB750. I knew that nobody sane would squander megadosh on something with all those cylinders, gears and gimmicky disc brakes.
I was entirely wrong, gentle reader, and not for the first time. Or indeed the last. In fact, I have been spectacularly wrong in all of my predictions for the future of motorcycling, most famously for my oft-stated view that rotary Nortons were the perfect motorcycle and would inevitably overtake the world. But it was a close thing. They nearly did. Or something.
The great wrongness of my view of Honda's mighty Four was predictably proved by the armies of riders who bought them – even in the UK, where conservatism rules as in few other markets. Even – pauses to draw breath – some of my friends bought them. I was staggered and indeed scornful. How could something so complex, so sophisticated, so… everything, be reliable or maintainable by a mere human? Give me a Norton Commando every time. Honest British engineering, masses of history, endless TT wins, and all from the company which brought us the entirely staggering Norton Jubilee. My case rested. I had a lot of time to
