Was out for a ride and pulled up next to one of these, as I approached for a second I thought it was a GS E.  Until today I had never seen or heard of one before, was a decent looking bike.  Maybe its just me, but It seems as tho Honda releases more bikes that are short-lived than any other brand.  I'm not personally a Honda fan, I find thier bikes are too "over engineered" and very pricey...specifically their ATV's, I owned a 2002 TRX400 and it was great ... when it worked ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_CB-1

Not a bad looking bike. Probably a competitor to the bandit 400. I like the idea of a small I4.

oh wow. thats a tiny i4. pretty cool looking bike. i agree honda seems to have more of these short lived gems than any other manufacturers. seems like they were all experiments in design and marketing.

Never seen one of those........nice.......Looks to be a distant relation of the classic 400/4 from the 70s.



Tuning in the carbs on a GS5 is as easy as opening a can of beans in comparison to those on the 440/4 

Yup, in Australia we know these as the CB400. For years they have mainly been Grey Imports, brought in here from the Japanese market where anything over a 400cc requires a lot of rigmarole to get licensed, so 400cc bikes sell quite well.

Around 2008-ish, however, we started getting CB400s into the country brought in by Honda itself. And these new ones have Vtec - two valves when puttering about which the computer opens to four valves when you need a gas/power burst. Also has an ABS option...



Biggest problem I see with them is their price.

Brand New Naked GS500 = $6,990A
Brand New Naked CB400 = $10,990A

However, they do sell a real lot for some reason. I'd say, if they brought the price down to match GS500s, not many GS500s would sell, when for the same prices you get fuel injected water cooled with roughly the same performance specs as the GS500. A lot of learner schools use them too, cause they are Learner Approved.

I've always thought of the CB400, CB600 (Hornet) and CB900 (919) as part of the same family of bikes, just different CCs.

Michael

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_CBR250

if you like tiny i-4s this one is insane 19k rpm O-o thats higher than a F1 engine... also makes 45 hp stock O_O

Quote from: crzydood17 on August 15, 2011, 02:57:36 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_CBR250

if you like tiny i-4s this one is insane 19k rpm O-o thats higher than a F1 engine... also makes 45 hp stock O_O

I want one of those badly....  Its just too bad they seem hard to find in the states.  I also want a YSR50 to tinker around with.