Top 10 Honda CB Models That Made History

Aug 24, 2023

Back in the 60s Honda effectively invented the universal Japanese motorcycle with their CB range

Despite only ‘arriving’ in 1955 with the Super Cub, Honda then proceeded on a ridiculously steep development trajectory that not only saw the company go racing in Europe from 1959, win its first two TT races in 1961, along with the 125cc and 250cc Grand Prix championships that same year, but also begin a program of road bike development that would take over the motorcycling world by the beginning of the 1970s. From the early days right through to the present day, the ‘CB’ range has been Honda’s calling card for excellence and innovation and, despite initially meaning ‘City Bike’, it has been applied to almost every type of Honda, from the 1959 CB92 to today’s CBR1000RR-R, from commuter bikes to sport bike missiles.

Related: Best Honda Motorcycles Ever Made

It’s a short step in time but a huge step in development from 1955 and the appearance of the Honda Super Cub and 1961 and the appearance of Honda’s first sports bike, the CB77, also known as the Super Hawk. At 305cc, the parallel twin engine was larger than most other Japanese bikes of the time and, if it was smaller than the largest British motorcycles, it had performance that was barely slower, while being lighter, smoother, better equipped (electric starter) and with better reliability. The CB77 featured Honda’s first steel tube frame in place of the pressed steel frame of other Honda models and the engine was a stressed member of the frame. Elvis Presley rode one in the film Roustabout, and it was the bike ridden by Robert M. Pirsig in the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

An important stepping stone between the CB77 and the CB750, the CB450, also known as the Black Bomber, featured a double overhead camshaft parallel twin developing 45 horsepower, virtually the same as the Triumph T120 Bonneville, which gave it similar performance, although costing the same as the Triumph and other British 650cc motorcycles harmed sales slightly. Beautifully engineered, the engine was smooth and reliable, as were the electrics (a far cry from those used on British motorcycles) and it yet again featured electric start and indicators. In 1968, it even got a five-speed gearbox, something that Triumph would only get around to in 1973! In the end, however, the CB450 couldn’t quite compete with Triumph, Norton and Harley-Davidson in the important U.S. market, which led to the development of the game-changing CB750.

For many enthusiasts, this is where the Japanese influence on motorcycling worldwide really started. Prior to this, Japanese manufacturers had concentrated on smaller displacement motorcycles and even the British assumed their position as builders of large displacement motorcycles was safe and so saw no threat to that position from the Japanese. Not the first transverse inline four cylinder motorcycle (that is credited to MV Agusta) but the first mass-production one, the 750cc engine produced 61 smooth and reliable horsepower, with electric start and a front disc brake. If the Japanese hadn’t quite yet mastered the art of frame design, they more than made up for it with their engines.

If the CB750 wasn’t ground-breaking enough, a couple of years later, Honda revealed the CB500F, with the company’s first 500cc inline four-cylinder engine. In appearance, it mirrored the CB750 completely, with a single-overhead camshaft cylinder head, electric start and disc front brake. The engine produced 50 horsepower and the CB500F could easily keep up with a 650cc Triumph and was little slower than the 1973-onwards 750cc Triumph models, while being much smoother and with much better reliability and oil-tightness. For the first time, the engine oil was carried in the sump, not in an external oil reservoir.

Related: 2022 Honda CB500F

Honda couldn’t help but be successful in the 1970s as it started to occupy displacement classes that had been completely abandoned due to the contraction of the British motorcycle industry and which once formed a large slice of motorcycle sales. Not that the CB350 resembled anything the British had built, with a jewel-like inline four-cylinder engine - the smallest capacity four-cylinder engine ever to be produced (at the time). By this time, Honda had a huge range, as evidenced by the existence of the CB350 with a parallel twin engine, that ran concurrently with the CB350F and which was said to be more powerful, lighter and cheaper. The CB350F was in production for only two years before being replaced by the CB400F.

Even though it was again in production for only three years, the CB400 Four is one of the more recognizable 1970s Hondas, thanks to the wild four-into-one exhaust system, where the previous CB350F had a four-into-four system. With the CB400F, Honda, which was diverting resources to the development of the Honda Civic automobile, simply continued with a tried-and-tested formula and increased the bore of the engine to give the new 408cc displacement which, driving through Honda’s first six-speed gearbox, produced 37 horsepower and a top speed of just over 100mph. If the CB400F was slower than rival two-stroke three cylinder models from Kawasaki, it was also much more refined, smoother and more fuel efficient. The CB400F also ushered in a new style for Honda, being more café racer than upright roadster.

What Honda must have spent on R&D in the 1970s doesn’t bear thinking about, with a huge model range and constant innovations. One such was a two-speed automatic gearbox as fitted to the CB750A, which was sold in Japan and America, although only 4,100 examples were ever made. The gearbox featured a torque converter, typical of all automatic transmissions, but the rider swapped between the two available gears via a foot lever, as in a normal manual gearbox. This was also the first example of the kick stand being equipped with a cut-out switch which prevented the transmission from moving out of neutral if the kick stand is down. The CB750A lasted only two years but the Hondamatic transmission found its way into other models as well as Honda automobiles.

Related: Honda Readying A Hybrid Motorcycle To Take On Kawasaki

The Honda CB1100R was produced in limited numbers from 1980 to 1983. It was a single-seat, fully-faired sports bike based on the CB900F. The R suffix denotes a racing version, however the CB1100R was a road-legal machine produced by Honda and offered for sale to the public, as required by the rules: it was produced only in numbers sufficient to meet the homologation requirements for the R to be classed as a production motorcycle in markets into which it was sold. It was Honda's first 'homologation special’ and was raced in production class racing in most major markets: including Europe, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. It was not sold in the US.

By the 1990s, 1000cc+ sports bikes were being manufactured by every Japanese manufacturer. The only problem was that they were large and heavy, which had knock-on effects to the performance and handling. Honda took a long, hard look and came up with the CBR900RR FireBlade. At a stroke, it re-wrote the sports bike rules. Even if the engine displacement was ‘only’ 893cc, it was significantly lighter than its rivals and the twin-spar aluminum frame offered new levels of stiffness, allowing the suspension to do its job much more effectively. Both these attributes enabled the FireBlade to run rings around the opposition, and it wasn’t long before rivals were copying the design lead set by Honda. Once again, Honda set the template for sports bikes that exists to this day.

By the mid-1990s, Kawasaki held the title of fastest production motorcycle with the Ninja ZX11. Honda was determined to wrest the title from Kawasaki’s grasp and win the publicity war. The Super Blackbird name was a reference to the Lockheed SR-71 jet, the fastest airplane in the world. When tested by Sport Rider magazine, the Super Blackbird achieved a top speed of 178.5mph, beating the Kawasaki by about 3mph. The arrival of the Super Blackbird to challenge Kawasaki prompted Suzuki to enter the competition and produce the Hayabusa, which took the top speed title with a speed of 194mph. This boom in speed frightened the manufacturers, who feared that European legislators would outlaw such performance bikes, so they entered into a gentlemen’s agreement to limit top speed to 186mph (300km/h).

Harry has been writing and talking about motorcycles for 15 years, although he's been riding them for 45 years! After a long career in music, he turned his hand to writing and television work, concentrating on his passion for all things petrol-powered. Harry has written for all major publications in South Africa, both print and digital and produced and presented his own TV show called, imaginatively, The Bike Show, for seven years. He held the position of editor of South Africa's largest circulation motorcycling magazine before devoting his time to freelance writing on motoring and motorcycling. Born and raised in England, he has lived in South Africa with his family since 2002. Harry has owned examples of Triumph, Norton, BSA, MV Agusta, Honda, BMW, Ducati, Harley Davidson, Kawasaki and Moto Morini motorcycles. He regrets selling all of them.