With the world in the grip of Covid-19, Honda will be having the world premiere of the 2020 Honda CB-F Concept online. The lockdown on international air travel has compelled many vehicle makers to launch their products online and the bike, scheduled to be shown at the Tokyo Motor Show and Osaka Motorcycle Show this month, will now be shown on the Honda Virtual Motorcycle Show website from today.
The CB tag in Honda’s lineup dates back to the ’60s, with the initial range of small displacement single- and two-cylinder street machines culminating in the Honda CB750-4 from 1969 setting the mould for the modern superbike as we know it. For the CB-F Concept, Honda uses the same formula as the original CB750-4 – an inline, four-cylinder naked sports that pays homage to the CB900F of the early 1980s.
The 998 cc, liquid-cooled, DOHC mill is taken from the Honda CB1000R and while no figures were published for the CB-F Concept, the CB1000R is rated at 143 hp at 7,500 rpm and 104 Nm of torque at 8,250 rpm. Mated to a six-speed gearbox, the distinctive thing about the CB-F Concept is the single-sided Pro-Arm swingarm, made famous from Honda Racing Corporation’s RC-series race machine and then on the VF-series road bikes.
Decked out in a matte silver with very ’80s looking blue stripes, the CB-F Concept does follow the lines of the original CB900F, along with the CB1100F and CB750F four-cylinder engine variants. Suspension, one of the original CB900F’s shortcomings, has been updated with upside-down forks and braking improved with radial-mounted four-piston brake callipers.
Honda’s Pro-Link rising rate rear suspension linkage is likely to be installed in the rear end and what looks to be a preload adjustable monoshock. Since the CB-F is still a concept design, things will likely change and following Honda’s trend of bringing retro machines from its catalogue back on the road, like the CB1100RS and the Neo Sports Cafe which became the CB1000R, we hope the transition from show bike to road bike does not take too long.
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Honda have build plenty of awesome retro cencept bikes before, most notably the CB 1100R concept and the CB4 Interceptor concept.
But none of it has been translated into showroom models. Maybe their pricing isn’t competitive enough like the C125 super cub and Monkey 125. For example if those 2 bikes are sold at the same price as the RS150, surely sales would boom.
This is real beautiful! But like all Hondas, they’re really gonna be expensive!
sadly if they do launch to be Euro5 compliance, it looks like single exhaust now and LED odometer, no more dual analog meter, no longer consider a classic look bike.
Whee.. Nice looking bike. Dang! Its Mco now..