Thread: Honda shows bizarre V4 Concept Model, says it wants to make it
Honda shows bizarre V4 Concept Model, says it wants to make it
Just the other day we were harping on about the return of vibrant ’80s colors to motocross, but we didn’t expect to see the decade’s whacky concept bikes make a return too. The Honda V4 Concept Model looks like it’s made from plastic, uses hubless wheels, a faired-in front swingarm, tire covers, styling inspiration that comes from both the CBR1000RR and Goldwing and, yes, a V4 engine. The craziest thing?
The company says, This bike shows exactly what we can do and is the sort of thing that could be reality within a couple of years.
The official press release reads:
Cologne, Germany, October 7, 2008– Honda Motor Europe Ltd. exhibitedthe World Premiere V4 Concept Model at Intermot Cologne. The V4 ConceptModel proposes a new, sensual design direction based on Honda’strademark 4-cylinder V- engine.
This year Honda celebrates its 60th anniversary as a company and nextyear the 50th anniversary of its participation in road racing, as wellas the 30th anniversary of racing with an innovative 4-cylinderV-engine with oval pistons. Considering these milestones, Honda choseThe New Beginning as its exhibition theme leading into 2009 andexhibited the V4 Concept Model which signifies the beginning of a newera.
For Intermot, Honda collected and exhibited successive V4 race machinesas well as mass-market motorcycle products which were developed byfeeding back the technologies cultivated through participation inchallenging race competition, enabling visitors to review the lineageof 30 years of V4 engine technologies and see how Honda will takemotorcycling somewhere it has not been before. The exhibition alsooffers an easy-to-understand introduction to various challenges Hondahas undertaken in order to create joy for its customers, by utilizingits technologies that have been continuously advanced through Honda’s60-year history and by its participation in motorsports.
Honda understands the global trend today that motorcycle users seeincreasing value in more emotional and sensual performance during thereal world riding experience rather than absolute performance measuredin numeric specifications. On another front, user friendly featuresthat meet with human sensibilities are also becoming important alongwith safety and environmental features, especially in mature markets.
Honda believes that the challenge to create attractive products with anincreased focus on sensual performance will be the key for the future. At the same time, safety and environmental technologies as well asfuture energy technologies will continue to become an important themefor the development of motorcycle products. Moreover, in order tooffer a comfortable life with motorcycles for a larger number ofcustomers, Honda will put increased focus on the human-fitting match ofrider and machine.
Conceived around the trademark 4-cylinder V-engine,the V4 Concept Model expresses functional beauty as well as a moresensual image to appeal more to the emotions of people. EmbodyingHonda’s passion for motorcycle development, the V4 Concept Modelexpresses the unique characteristics of Honda for a new era.
The V4 Concept Model mobilizes the driving forces of Honda – dreams,challenges, and creating new value. Honda positions this model as thenew beginning of Honda’s motorcycles.
There’s two things we take away from this:
1. Honda’s talk of emotional and sensual experience over out rightperformance seems to indicate that it wants to develop new road-goingperformance bikes that transcend existing competition-based archetypesin favor of a more rider-friendly design.
2. There’s an awful lot of talk of V4 engines; we don’t think they’dplace quite the emphasis on these unless there was some on-goingprogram within the company to develop new applications of this format,or maybe even an all-new model waiting in the wings.
Does all this mean that we’ll see a big, comfy, extremelyunconventional and high-tech V4 superbike on offer from Honda in thenext couple of years? We don’t know, but we sure hope so. But while we’re happy to see Honda continuing to look towards the future, we’d also like to see it draw inspiration from the past by bringing models like the Honda CB1100F an CB1100R concepts to production.
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