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New Zealand has chosen as its Motorcycle of the Century the Honda CB750 Four.
That\'s the result of an extremely close contest run through this year.
The CB750 took the Motorcycle of the Century title by the narrowest margin possible. A jury of top New Zealand motorcycle journalists which narrowed the choices through this year voted a dead-heat between the CB750 and another Honda, the 50 stepthru.
The pair came out equal when the panel narrowed its final five bikes to first, second and third.
On a further ballot, the 750 took the nod by six votes to five with one abstention.
Released in 1969, The CB750 is generally regarded as the world\'s first superbike. The model continued largely unchanged through the early 70s and its four-cylinder transverse layout (across the frame) is still followed today by Honda and other manufacturers.
A ground-breaking sports machine with its four carburetors and four exhaust pipes, the machine followed the accepted pattern and looks of its era. But with electric start, disc brake, effortless power and oil-tight reliability it sounded the death knell for ailing British motorcycle industry and marked the rise of the Japanese sun.
Jurists praised the little 50 stepthru, which has appeared in numerous guises since its release in the early 60s, for getting the world onto two wheels. Its American advertising campaign \'You meet the nicest people on a Honda\' exploded the image of motorcyclists as anti-social greasenecks. Clean, quiet and simple to ride, the Honda 50 stepthru is still built today, 27 million units later. It is particularly popular in developing Asian nations.
Third place in the quest went to the Triumph 650 Bonneville, ahead of the Army Indian and Kawasaki 900 Z1 5. British, American and Japanese bikes respectively.
From an initial shortlist of 24 bikes, the panel selected a Top Twelve then the Final Five before the current countdown began.
The aim of the quest was to decide \"the motorcycle which has had the greatest impact on mankind this century, from a New Zealand perspective. It had to be a street-legal motorcycle manufactured in series production and sold on the open market.\"
The nationwide jury making the selections included writers and broadcasters with long experience in motorcycles. Several are also leading car journalists.
It\'s believed to be the most auspicious group of independent motorcycle experts brought together in this country. They are:
Steve Bicknell, sport programmer, Sky Television, Auckland;
Brian Cowan, freelance motoring journalist, Christchurch;
Richard Driver, television producer and motorcycle writer, Auckland;
Mike Esdaile, Editor, Kiwi Rider magazine, Auckland;
Rhys Jones, Editor, Motorcycle Trader and News magazine, Auckland;
Vic Kay, freelance motorcycle writer, Hamilton;
Rex Knight, freelance motorcycle writer, Westport;
Jacqui Madelin, Editor, Autocar magazine, Auckland;
Andy McGechan, Sub Editor and freelance motorcycle writer, New Plymouth;
Dave Moore, motoring editor, The Press, Christchurch;
Roger Moroney, motorcycle writer, Daily Telegraph, Napier;
Roger Wakefield, motorcycle writer, NZ Herald, Auckland.
People can access information and air their own opinions on a website:
http://bike100.onthe.net.nz
BACKGROUND
Judges\' comments in support of the CB750
The definitive CB750K0 along with Woodstock, influenced an entire generation.
It started motorcycling as we know it today.
The bike that created the term superbike. The CB750 was the first of them. It turned motorcycling into something big and epic for the general public. It freed motorcycling from the shackles of the down-market image of oily and greasy bikes and hell-raising bikers.
The CB750 set the benchmark for power, performance and comfort for the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Raised and set the standard of motorcycles to come disk brakes, 5-speed box, electric start.
A landmark machine. It had a huge influence on the bulk of the machines that came after it. All four major Japanese factories subsequently became dependent on four-cylinder motors for big bikes, and the CB750 first shown to the world in 1968, was the predecessor of the mass of fours on the road today. The bike\'s influence in New Zealand, on the brink of the Japanese big bike boom of the 70\'s, was enormous.
Nominated for its sheer timing. Being first among the modern four pot bikes by about three years means that the CB750 gets my vote ahead of the Z1/900, even if it was less sophisticated and slower. It effectively shaped the template for 90 per cent of all full-sized bikes for the last third of the century.
The Z1 may have done it better, but the Honda was the first real superbike. Superbikes fire the imagination of the enthusiast, and lately even of the man in the street, at least in NZ, thanks to Aaron Slight (and, incidentally, Honda\'s) success.
After its GP and production successes of the 60s, Honda could have thrown any number of cams and valves at this bike, but they didn\'t and it\'s the elegant sufficiency of the package that distances the original KO from the later, albeit quicker Kwaka Z1.
The first time a few dozen CB750s turned up at the International Dragon Rally in 1969, there were Triumph, Norton, and BSA riders from all over Europe at the annual gathering who witnessed - embodied in the form of one machine - the end of Motorcycling as they knew it. It was like having access to God\'s life-planner. In it they would find the statement......\"and the Lord said; \'No longer will motorcycles be oily, vibratative, dismantled occupiers of lounge rooms, from now on they will be smooth, reliable, easy to start, four cylindered and....Japanese....and most will bear the wing-ed hieroglyph of Honda.\' and it came to pass.\"
Clearly the winner and having owned two of them hasn\'t swayed my judgment here. Indeed, that\'s my point entirely. They looked good, had an engine that changed the face of motorcycling and set the ball rolling. It was class and quality and set a standard in motorcycling that shook it out of the iron age to the modern age.
No ifs, no buts, this is it. If I didn\'t have my RD350 back then I would have had one of these. With my wife\'s permission of course. The CB750 was a very reliable tourer, a good looker and fun to be around.
The Japanese had really arrived with this one and the opposition were seen to be heading for their design rooms to try to dream up a motorcycle that could meet the CB750 at least halfway in the design and sales stakes.
Judges\' comments in support of the C50
The ubiquitiuos stepthru got people onto two wheels. No significant technical wonders involved here, purely the essence of the ride. So many young kiwis used them to go to school or university. It offered them their first taste of freedom.
What can you say, 27 million first owners can\'t be wrong. You can\'t kill them with a stick, and they\'re singularly responsible for motorcycling today. As reliable and quick as a mantle clock, with all the sensible bits attached, the early 60s C50 - then the C100-110 - should have shown the British bike makers the writing on the wall, but they took no notice until an export ledger 10 per cent the size of its peak was compared with Honda\'s own growing account which had exploded to 3000 per cent in four years.
No bike has gone as long with so few major changes - I loved mine.
The red and white items were everywhere back in the 60s. Clean, efficient, user friendly, reliable and most of all respectable. They changed a lot of people\'s perceptions of two wheels. Some silly buggers even raced them.
As ubiquitous as sparrows and just as unremarkable, yet the Cub continues to put reliable wheels under the world four decades on from its introduction. It should break an old sports biker\'s heart to vote for such a basic machine but strangely it isn\'t a burden. It fulfils the primary goals of motorcycle ownership - to provide its owner with mobility, freedom and fun - superbly well.
Introduced non-motorcyclists to motorised two wheeled transport in their millions, rather in the same way that the Model T and Mini did on four wheels.
This little job got people to work and around town for a couple of bob a day and was then the most reliable form of transport around. They were all riding the Honda C50: lawyers, doctors, housewives, you name them they were riding it.
Carrier of the teeming masses. Top marks to Honda for identifying a vast market, producing a near as dammit perfect design to cater for it, and executing one of the most successful sales campaigns ever. The rest is history.
For the young teens and others who used it as basic transport was cemented a relationship with things on two wheels in general that lasted from cradle to the grave in marketing terms.
From the New Zealand point of view, our first purpose-built farm bikes were stepthru Hondas and a C70 with a gun fixed to the front forks and a dog or two on the seat rack has been an achetypal New Zealand cliche for more than thirty years.
It got people onto motorcycles.
First for sheer cheek.
