motorcycle features when the CB750 hit
the market in 1969. Just as importantly,
the styling was good enough to turn
heads, and unique enough to attract
buyers.
Honda’s strength
That Soichiro Honda, the founder of
Honda Motor Company, was in the posi-
tion that his company could design and
build a bike like the CB750 was due
to years of forethought and investment. In the early 1950s Mr.
Honda, with the help of some optimistic banks, bought $1
million worth of American and Swiss
machine tooling. Meanwhile, his British
rivals soldiered on with the same old
pre-war lathes and milling machines —
they had to keep the shareholders happy,
after all — and Harley-Davidson, then
the sole surviving American motorcycle
company, had bought up as much sur-
plus equipment as it could after World
War II, but years of poor sales had lim-
ited its ability to keep up in the factory
machinery department.
By 1959, Honda was the largest motorcycle manufacturer in