Honda VF750F Interceptor: 1983-1984.(RETROSPECTIVE)

Publication: Rider

Publication Date: 01-MAY-05

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COPYRIGHT 2005 Ehlert Publishing Group

This was the sportbike that was going to knock Honda's Japanese competitors to their knees.

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This VF750F was going to be so good, so fast, so refined, so different, that the other motorcycle manufacturers in old Nippon would be wallowing in Honda's technological wake for years to come.

Unfortunately for the Honda Motor Company, this was not to be.

Soichiro Honda had boggled the motorcycling world in 1969 with his in-line four, and a short 10 years later the other three in the Big Four had followed suit. So Soichiro-san decided to trump his own ace, and gave the go-ahead for a transversely mounted V-4. Several advantages are inherent in this design, the most notable being that the engine unit can be made more compact, and the width appreciably narrower. Disadvantages? Nobody had really thought about that.

This V-4 engine had appeared the year before in the shaft-driven Sabre and Magna models, and had been...

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