By Admin
This week, it’s only Garrett and me, as “Eric T” (if that’s even his real name) is busy moving into a new home. We discuss my recent turn as a presenting judge at the Art of the Car Concours, which led to a couple of uncommonly coincidental connections. We go on to discuss some of Honda’s late ’80s flops-turned-cult-bikes, and wonder about what future cult favorites we’re ignoring now.
False Neutral – It’s A Small World After All
Except where noted in the captions, images are standard press kit/website photos used courtesy of the respective manufacturers.
Jeff Glucker
I’m a little shocked the whole “working some African oil field, buying vehicles online for an eventual return to North America” isn’t just a Craigslist scam (one I’ve encountered).
Generally, he would find motorcycles he liked that were local to me (and his home residence) and I would go make a deal for him. I’m pretty sure, however, the subject line of his email didn’t describe himself as a Nigerian Prince with a promise to pay double asking price as soon as the bike shipped 😉
Heh, I’m copying someone else’s version, but I’ve gotten variances on the following from multiple international places;
“Thanks for mailing back,am ok with the price and the condition,am
buying it for my vacation,because i’ll be coming soon from our rig as
am a petroleum engineer on a rig offshore,i won’t be able to come for
the inspection due to the nature of my work,i would have love to call
in person but our satellite server has been down which restrict our
calls.i will be paying you through PayPal,pls get back to me with your
PayPal details so i can proceed with the payment and contact the
courier agent who will come to pick it up and deliver it in my place.”
But yeah, having a physical representative pretty much proves it’s not that kind of scam.
The NT650 Hawk is usually mentioned with its stable mates, the CB-1 and the GB500, because they were all 1990-ish and imported to the states for only 2 or 3 years. You can add the 1994-1995 CB1000 (a.k.a. ‘The Big One’) to the list of 2-year imports Honda teased our market with. Very striking when seen in real life, like a great big CB-1 with twin rear shocks. I expect the CTX700 to go away too soon, because pretty Honda.
http://moto.zombdrive.com/images/honda-nt650-hawk-gt-1988-2.jpg
http://gallery.mvagusta.net/image_db/dukesean/94cb1000/34028.jpg
I’ve always rrreealllyyy liked the NT650. It is a model I would love to own for a while.
I will say that I like the Honda Transalp just a little bit less now that it stranded us with a failure. Ended up being a bad CDI which I discovered only after rebuilding both carbs and replacing the 4 spark plugs (two of which required some kind of witchcraft to get to)… At least CDI’s are only $97 straight from Honda!