Britbike forum Forums British Motorcycle specific Brands Triumph bulletin board Honda blatantly rips off Triumph!!!

Well, it was news 30 years ago....

Here's what I'm talking about.

This is the Triumph Hurricane most of you are familiar with.


Nice example, spit shined and restored...

And here's the copycat.

1985 Honda Nighthawk 650


Truthfully, I didn't notice it, but a friend of mine pointed it out when I was showing him pictures of the bike I bought and is now on the boat on its way here.

I had to agree. The similarities are mainly in the lines of the fuel tank and side covers and perhaps the line of the seat.

This picture is pretty much exactly like the bike I bought to replace the ageing KZ550 I've been riding for the last 10 years.
I live upcountry and the climb up the grade is threatening to wear out the smaller motor of the KZ so I wanted to get something with more power. Also it has hydraulic valve actuation, shaft drive, anti dive forks with twin discs, solid state ignition 6 speed overdrive gearbox. Very advanced for 1985.

73bhp according to some reports. Not bad for a 650. The choices were basically the NH650, 700s or the later NH750. I opted for the smaller, lighter and older bike. Classic bike insurance is 25% of standard insurance with full coverage and agreed value. Also, not bad. Cut off is 30 years with the insurance company I use.

But I was attracted to the styling of the 650 as well. Didn't really understand why, but now it's clear. I'm not fond of square headlights and "dashboards" but, I can live with it.

I paid less than 4k for it including the boat ride here. It has 5k miles from new. I can give a ride report when it gets here next week. I'll need a couple of days to sort out some small stuff. Maybe a couple of days to ride it all over. You know how it is with a new bike....


Cheers,
Bill

A rip off, 12 years after Triumph failed to produce any more Hurricanes?

H*nda also currently makes a vintage CB750 that looks similar but modern internals.

Ideas cannot be copyrighted, only their manner of expression.

Well, didn't somebody once say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!
And didn't the Italian agricultural machinery manufacturer base their first motorcycle foray into the American market on the most popular motorcycle of that market at that time? Which is why the " American Eagle " ( aka Laverda) looked like a Honda Super Hawk on steriods!

Who shamelesly copied the use of two wheel from whom?

yamaha ripped off triumph then triumph ripped off yamaha, thus the 79 bonnie special.

I saw these two bikes side by side at a dealership in 1979 when I was shopping for a new bike.





The styling cues are remarkably similar.

I paid 1500$ for the SR tax, license and T-shirt. The Triumph was twice the price. I didn't keep the SR very long. It was just too slow for me.

Who knows what might have happened if I coughed up the extra dough for the D model? I might still have it....

Cheers,
Bill

It would be niave to think that designers of anything are not looking at their competitors designs, old and new. There is nothing new under the sun. RR

Don't know what you paid for yours Bill and it looks very nice but this seems to be the going rate for these in this region and this just popped up. Not for me of course but must admit it a stylish looking bike and I wold like to give it a go if I had a chance.

http://burlington.craigslist.org/mcy/5132422046.html

Kind of hard to design motorcycles for over 100 years now and have all the different manufacturers make all the different models unique. Invariably some are going to look like others to some extent.

The only styling queue that Honda shares with the Hurricane is how the tank flows to the side cover. And Honda was not the only one to do that in the 80's.

Sure as hell no one making one that looks like this since the mid 60's, that's for sure.

Looks only a mother could love.....


Jon, My Nighthawk cost a bit more than that. It's quite possible that I will have the only one in the state. There's a couple of 700s's here and I missed buying one for 2800$ a few months ago. I don't know why everyone thinks their bikes are worth so much here.
It had 40k miles on it though. For these Hondas, the mileage isn't that significant when considering a purchase. How it was treated is.

And the styling wasn't the most important point when considering a bike. The later 750 actually look better to my eye, but they're way heavier, are chain driven, and they're down on power compared to the 700.

There are still plenty of bikes around bought by a new motorcyclist who scared themselves then parked it. The one I got was one of them and was returned to the street by a motorcycle shop.
The chief mechanic was bummed when I bought it. Of the whole fleet of bikes he has at his disposal, the little 650 was his favorite.

Cheers,
Bill

off-topic alert!

i was looking for that modern 750 mentioned earlier, and found something different. from off the honda powersports website:



i was struck by the price tag: US$184,000 MSRP.

comes with a lot of extras, though.

http://www.rc213v-s.com/

I wouldn't consider that off topic if it resembled something British. However, even the British race bikes seem to have more panache and style than other offerings.

I was at an auction in L.A. a number of years ago. They had ten of these bad boys for sale. Just a bit out of my league....

Norton rotary F1


Not for street use, they said, even tho it had lights...

But I was smitten by a Douglas speedway bike for 25K.....

How I wanted to take this gem for a hot lap!




I can't think of a single fore and aft twin in production at this time...

Cheers,
Bill

where are the footpegs on that?

Pretty observant..

Well, there's no need for a left side footpeg. If you need to rest your outrigger leg, you can just about park it anywhere convenient. But with an open primary chain external flywheel and hot exhaust, there's really no where convenient.

Right side has two places for your leg. A footpeg in the normal sense, and a brace where you would wedge your knee under. It sounds wickedly dangerous and I'm sure there were a lot of broken right legs in those days because of it. You can see the brace about 1/3 the way up the tank right at the front of the seat. Knee goes under the brace, not over.




Cheers,
Bill

the really specialized machinery is fascinating. the longer i look at it the more interesting it is. what sort of speeds were they doing on those things?

The longer tracks in England in those days would see 50-60mph maybe more on the straights. The rode on burnt coal ashes or cinders as they're called before they switched to crushed shale.

Mustn't think they were slow just because it was a long time ago.



This guy looks like he's really flyin...

That thing what looks like he has something big in his pocket....that's the leg hook..

This is called leg trailing style. It has come back into practice after a long time of leg leading style.

BTW the fellow in your avatar looks like one of the Speedway stars of this era....


cheers,
Bill

why did the leg hook disappear?

it looks like a useful way to hang onto the machine, but obviously isn't used anymore.

was it really prone to break legs?

That 80's machine Bill bought looks ok for a older Honda. Many Honda's look like loaves bread.

The Honda Ascot is a supposed ripoff of a a Triumph styling exercise that never made production

I can't comment on whether it actually broke legs. It does look hideously dangerous to me, though.

In my quest to find the perfect two wheel transportation for myself, I did consider the Ascot VT500.



Im sure it would be fun to ride, but I was concerned that it wouldn't have enough power for my purposes.

I've been riding around with that 80's boxy styling on my current bike for 10 years. I guess I'm used to it.

I almost got this one, instead.



I'm sure nothing like this ever came out of British design studios....

I worked on one of these for awhile and got to ride a fair amount. Smooth powerful, dead reliable. Not real pretty.....


Cheers,
Bill

Will it work on a cane road ?

My friend has a '69 TR6 with high pipes on it and K70's

Don't tell anyone, but us old dudes are planning a blast on it around those very same cane roads.

On a Sunday, of course. The red trucks from the sugar mill won't be cruising around then...


The Ascot might do a fair job of it with the right tires, but I wonder what the effect of the shaft drive would have on the bike while crossed up in the corners? Sounds a bit iffy...
The single with chain drive seems a better tool for that job.

Cheers,
Bill