Yes, it’s a Honda CX500. Another one… of 1232 Cafe racers built this year based on this small V-twin 🙂 Boooooring…
But wait… What is that under the seat? Behind the engine?
A Turbo! That’s new…
Actually it’s not. As there was a short period of time in motorcycling history (beginning of 80’s), about 2-4 years, when Japanese tested the turbo concept on motorcycles. It was the CX that Honda turbocharged during this “competition”…. These super rare examples are now pretty valuable. Why didn’t they last?
2 reasons:
1. Performance was not as good as expected. The extra horsepower came, but at a cost… Turbo lag was killing the driveability… as before the turbo got spinning, the bikes were really sluggish… way worse than naturally aspirated ones.
2. The price. Putting a turbo to a 500-750 engine – made the bikes to cost around what 1000cc cost. Considering the cons (point 1) – there was not much interest on the market.
But this CX500 is so cool. Not only the turbo looks badass, but it must sound amazing! Does anyone have a video of this beauty on the road?
Enjoy!
Source: Kingston Custom Motorcycles
