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Issue #057
What's New at CruiserCustomizing.com
1. Book Review: Honda Motorcycles by Aaron P. Frank
2. We want your input for the new CruiserCustomizing Magazine
3. Hot Deals and Clearance Specials
1. Book Review: Honda Motorcycles by Aaron P. Frank
All photos courtesy Honda Motorcycles, pub. Motorbooks International.
Finally, the definitive volume about the Honda marque...from a writer/rider who truly loves the history behind the winged nameplate.
A study of Honda's grand success must begin with a close look at Soichiro Honda, one of the world's greatest industrial giants and visionaries.
Early Hondas were intended for cheap post-WW2 mass transportation. But Mr. Honda had a dream...
With those legendary words, "You meet the nicest people on a Honda", an entirely new world of two-wheeling motorsports was created as the world discovered the joy of two wheels.
Since 1958 the C-100 Super Cub has undergone four decades of continuous production with only minimal changes. A staggering 30 million have been manufactured to date.
In 1969 Honda kickstarted the Era of the Superbike with the introduction of the in-line four CB750. Pliant and cooperative around town, it coould surpass 100mph on the freeway. It nearly shut down the British motorcycle industry singlehandledly.
Freddie Spencer competed aboard the big machines in the AMA Superbike championship in the early 1980s.
Who says a custom bike has to be a V-twin bar hopper? This piece of riding jewelry built by Cobra Engineering is cool for either cruising or intercontinental travel.
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With the recent publication of Aaron P. Frank's HONDA MOTORCYCLES, we Honda fans have easy access
to all the facts of the company that-at the close of World War Two-started from nothing and rocketed to first place as fast as a drag strip racer. Frank, who just turned thirty, is the editor of SUPER STREET BIKE and a senior editor at MOTORCYCLIST, America's oldest motorcycle magazine. Frank's book is a historical epic which leads his readers through the dynamic history of the world's leading motorcycle company, a brand that builds fast and reliable machines from iron ponies to thoroughbred racers, motorcycles that excel in every niche of riding and competition.
This hardcover, 192-page volume is filled with color shots lending stunning visualization to each milestone. Not content with a history portrayed by images, Frank tracked down and interviewed Big Red's old-timers; men who helped build Mr. Soichiro Honda's motorcycle company out of thin air through vision, race victories and pure salesmanship. HONDA MOTORCYCLES shines all the more because the talented author was content to remain a background organizer and historian who, through countless interviews and intercontinental travel, let the words of Honda's movers and shakers shape his volume.
In fact, Frank first started the project as a master's thesis at Chicago's DePaul University, yet HONDA MOTORCYCLES is no dry college dissertation; the author's love of riding and of Honda lore shines through each word.
As the author told me in an e-interview, "My intention was, as much as possible, to let the people involved tell the story in their own words. To hear the inside story from Bob Hansen and Bob Jameson, or to hear Freddie Spencer talk about his first test on the VF750R, now that's a story. It was plenty of work, 90,000 words and 2 ½ years, and who knows how much long distance money, but I'm very proud of the final product."
Not only is Frank an unrepentant fan of the brand, but he is also a sold-out admirer of the company's founding father Soichiro Honda. In the Introduction to HONDA MOTORCYCLES, the young author poses the question, "Why Honda?" His answer: "Honda Motor Company stands apart from other Japanese motorcycle manufacturers not only because of its reputation for innovative products, but also as the only company with a human face-tell me, who is the founder of Yamaha, Suzuki or Kawasaki?" With that, HONDA MOTORCYCLES takes off with a brief look at the wild ride that was Soichiro Honda's life, an exciting journey that was not built upon the staid conformity of a tradition-bound Japan. This son of the village blacksmith who would someday create the Honda Rebel was himself a rebel through and through. Mr Honda sowed his wild oats in youth, he even drove off a bridge with a car full of Geisha girls and danced naked at his wedding.
For better or worse Aaron P. Frank is also a rebel. In the April '04 issue of MOTORCYCLIST, Frank burst onto the stage of moto-glory with his laugh-out-loud article "Yamahaulin'" about a trip from Huntington to Madison, 2200 miles, in 44 hours aboard his blue and white R1. Readers mostly enjoyed Frank's handlebar wit, but the Iron Butt Association's President Michael Kneebone, "to ensure the integrity and safety of its event", unceremoniously yet paternalistically, booted the Yamahauler from its elite membership for "behavior exhibited by Aaron on his ride." Frank responded in MOTORCYCLIST's July issue with a sarcasm-laced back-page editorial complete with grinning photo of him torching his Iron Butt Membership certificate. Like Mr. Honda, Frank is a two-wheel rebel to the core, and this similarity in attitude perhaps explains the author's respect for "the human face of Honda Motor Company." Though both men are a world and two generations apart, both are endowed with the face of genius mixed with non-conformity combined with a love of motorcycling.
Why Honda? Honda Motor Company has sold over 100 million two-wheelers worldwide and is the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world. Honda is also the world's seventh largest manufacturer of automobiles. It is the globe's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines, producing over ten million motors a year, counting its scooters, lawn mowers, tractors, and varieties of power equipment. The company was founded on Mr. Honda's belief in "thinking globally and acting locally," and today builds Honda motorcycles in twenty-seven countries worldwide.
Do you crave American iron? Gold Wings have been built in Marysville, Ohio for a quarter of a century now and, like it or not, that's long enough to start a tradition.
Honda has paved new thoroughfares for motorcyclists from its itty-bitty tiddlers to gargantuan power cruisers; from its awesome dirt and track bikes drawing checkered flags to flagships of intercontinental highways.
In 1968 Honda ushered in the era of the superbike with the CB750. In 1975 Honda created the luxury tour category with the GL1000 Gold Wing. Honda's 1800cc VTX launched in 2001 was for a while the biggest V-twin power cruiser available, a musclebike generating 107 foot-pounds of road-ripping torque. Just this year Honda's factory custom, the Rune, marked Big Red's entrance into the now popular $25,000+ market segment.
So after all this is considered, which motorcycle bearing the winged nameplate does Aaron P. Frank dub the most important Honda ever made? You guessed it: the 49cc C100 Super Cub, considering its "longevity, profitability and (even) oddball style." Frank observes, "(Since 1958) in more than four decades of continuous production, only minimal changes have been made. Well over 30 million units of the C100 and its descendants have been sold internationally making the Super Cub one of the most successful appliances of all time, wheeled or otherwise…In a large part the Super Cub is responsible for building Honda's reputation in America, and for introducing tens of thousands of people to the joys and pleasures of two-wheeled transportation."
Aaron P. Frank's easy style, combined with his affection for Mr. Honda's company and its dedicated associates (they are not called workers), makes HONDA MOTORCYCLES a volume that belongs on the shelf of every rider and fan of this reliable and legendary marque. Here at last we have at our fingertips a smooth, definitive and concise history of Big Red.
HONDA MOTORCYCLES by Aaron P. Frank is available for online ordering through our partner Amazon.com.
Book Review by Miles Davis
2. We want your input for the new CruiserCustomizing Magazine
Last year's releases of the CruiserCustomizing Newsletter have been pretty spotty.
For 2005 we have some exciting changes planned and want to have our members
participate in the final outcome.
The newsletter will be converted into an online magazine and the editorial content
will be based on your feedback. You will even have a chance to name the new magazine!
To participate please complete this quick survey now.
Thank you
Your CruiserCustomizing Team.
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