the world. It had based its success on selling small motorcycles
of excellent quality to Asian customers, but it soon branched out.
As the 1960s progressed, Honda sold increasingly larger capacity
motorcycles worldwide. Honda products swamped the British
manufacturers’ small bike offerings, and although the Japanese
imports cost more, they had good brakes, bright lights and elec-
tric starters. And they didn’t leak oil.
The 750 Four debuts
In 1967, rumors began to circulate that Honda was building
a 750. Many people thought it would be a twin, like the popular
British motorcycles of the time, but when a prototype was exhib-
ited at the Tokyo Motor Show in October 1968, the powerplant
turned out to be an inline 4-cylinder. Observers thought the bike
owed a lot to Honda’s 500cc GP race bike. Like the racer, the new
four had its cylinders transverse to the frame. But where the racer
had double overhead camshafts, the street four had a single
overhead cam. Painted Candy Blue Green, the new model stirred
up international interest and would-be customers jammed
Honda dealers’ phone lines, only to be told they didn’t have any
750s and didn’t know when they would. An unknown journalist
dubbed the new machine a Superbike — the first recorded use
of the term.
American dealers, customers and motorcycle magazines impa-
tiently waited for the new four, which finally arrived on these
shores in June 1969. The motorcycle that was imported to the
U.S. had one important upgrade from the prototype — a front
disc brake. It also had chrome exhausts and a more streamlined
tank, although the steering damper fitted to the prototype had
been deleted.
Cycle magazine published one of the first full road reports, not-
ing that the electric starter was reliable, the clutch action light
and the bike liked to rev, courtesy of four small cylinders and a
light flywheel. Vibration was zero, and testers were surprised by
mirrors that were viewable at highway speed. High-speed han-
dling was good, helped along by the Dunlop tires, but the rear
brake had a tendency to lock up and the bike’s weight had to be
taken into consideration when cornering.
Honda’s state-of-the-art tooling enabled the factory to eco-
nomically produce an engine with a reliable one-piece forged
crankshaft, a chain-driven overhead camshaft, a compact 5-speed
transmission, and a pressure-fed oiling system. The heads
were designed in a sophisticated in-house research facility and
Honda’s design team had a computer to assist in number crunch-
ing. All this technology allowed Honda to take the 750 from con-
cept to prototype in a very short period. By some accounts, the
750 took less than a year to develop.
As introduced, the Honda K0 was remarkably bug free, but a
few items needed to be worked out, including an overenthusias-
tic chain oiling system that left puddles on the asphalt. Getting
the bike up on the centerstand took too much effort, and the
clutch was a bit grabby. In general, however, testers were more
than pleased.
The one thing that Honda had not taken into consideration
was the potential demand for the new four. The first CB750 engine
cases and cylinder heads were gravity cast in sand forms. This
was a slow method of production, and after the first few months
the factory switched to high-pressure die casting. Don Stockett,
owner of Vintage Motorcycle Rescue (vintagemotorcyclerescue
.com) and a vintage Honda expert, explains that only the first
7,414 engine cases — engine numbers to CB750E-10007414 —
were produced by the gravity sand cast method, and the rest
of the 54,000 1969-1970 CB750s were die cast. A period report
mentioned that the Honda factory was working to get component
assembly time down to two minutes. In comparison, Harley-
Davidson’s entire output of FLHs in 1969 was 7,300 motorcycles.