The original Honda CB750 Four is one of the most sought-after bikes to customize. And it’s not hard to see why: classic 1970s style, peerless performance for its era, and that legendary Honda engineering.
It also means it’s getting harder to find a good, serviceable SOHC CB750 for reasonable money. Anything under $4,000 is likely to need remedial work, and a pristine 1969 example with the ‘sandcast’ engine will set you back three times that.
With CB750 Four values escalating, the stereotypical checkered-stripe-and-clip-ons CB custom is on the wane. The best builders are now putting more thought into their CB750 builds, as befits the first production motorcycle to crack the 200 kph (124 mph) barrier. So take a look at these five customs from the USA, Europe and Australia. Each one puts a unique spin on the ‘world’s first superbike.’
WRENCHMONKEES GORILLA PUNCH If there’s one bike that put the Danish masters on the map, it’s ‘Gorilla Punch’ (above and top). Four years ago, this CB750 made the custom world sit up and notice, and not just because it’s the first time whitewalls have looked good on a post-War bike. The engine gets a healthy power boost from Keihin CR29 carbs and a straight-through exhaust system, and the bodywork is all-new new. There are too many custom parts to list, from the triple trees up front to the extended swingarm out back, and a complete new brake system in between. ‘Gorilla Punch’ was put on display at at Kunst Industri Museet, the Danish Museum of Art & Design, and today it lives in Dubai. Hopefully it’s being ridden as it was intended. [Wrenchmonkees]
STEVE ‘CARPY’ CARPENTER’S CYCLONE Carpy is the world’s pre-eminent CB750 specialist, and a real character to boot. An expat Londoner living in the USA, he’s known for his jovial personality as much as his bike builds. But there’s little this guy doesn’t know about building CB750s. ‘Cyclone’ is his tour-de-force, a bike that has been stripped down to its core components and painstakingly rebuilt with a nod to the traditional ‘Ace Café’ genre of customs. [More about this bike | CB750 Café]
MOTOHANGAR 1976 CB750 Pat Jones knows how to make a bike look good, but this has got to be the most arresting of all Motohangar builds. The biggest stroke of genius was fitting a Kawasaki KZ tail, instantly giving the CB750 a rakish stance—accentuated by the edgy graphics and monochrome paint and powder. It’s an unapologetically ‘new wave’ build, complete with pod filters, pipewrap and Firestones, but we don’t care. With ample power on tap to match the brutal looks, this bike has attitude by the bucketload. [More about this bike | Motohangar]
HOUSE ROCKERS This Japanese workshop is not well-known in the West, but should be. It builds CB750s with a strong performance slant, starting with seriously hot-rodded engines. This one is sporting a forged crank, big valves, a Wiseco 836cc kit and Yoshimura-tweaked carbs. The suspension on has been upgraded too, with new Kayaba forks up front, Öhlins out back, and magnesium wheels. It might look a little high-ridin’—but this is a CB750 built for pure speed. [More about this bike | House Rockers]
EXTREME CREATIONS DICK MANN REPLICA Dick Mann was one of the all-time AMA racing greats, and there are several CB750 replicas bearing his name. This, in our opinion, is one of the best. It was built by the Australian shop Extreme Creations, and promptly delivered to the Deus studio for a shoot before it went on sale. As a transformation, it’s beyond reproach: the donor CB750 was a complete wreck, and the result is jaw-dropping. The frame was blasted back to bare metal, the bodywork is hand-formed, and beautiful details are everywhere you look—including a CNC-machined stator cover with a sandcast finish. Automotive jewelry of the highest order, with performance to match. [More images of this bike | Extreme Creations]
If you don’t fear something, anything in life, then you’re doing it wrong. It shows a lack of understanding for your surroundings, a sense of over confidence or maybe you just got too comfortable? Talk to anybody who does something that pushes boundaries or explores the outer limits of their ability and you’ll find some fear in the emotional mix. Which is no bad thing, because what fear does is heighten your senses, raise your awareness and encourage you to prepare for what you’re about to undertake. Even if you’ve never done it before.
Which I haven’t. Sure I’ve driven plenty of fast cars. I’ve driven track cars, I’ve driven Caterhams before, cars with no roof or screen even. But now sat here after the fact, I can testify that nothing you do will prepare you for the way the 620R feels, and I mean feel. Because this isn’t all about acceleration and speed, this is about connection. I swear I didn’t get in to the 620R, I put it on.
Of course that’s Suzy not me, I can’t take pictures and drive at the same time… I’m not Larry Chen after all. When we asked the good people at Caterham if we could spend some time with the 620R, they were incredibly British in posing the question if whoever was going to be driving the car had experienced anything similar before? As this is the company’s most powerful model and being late February, it might be a little damp out there. Of course we reassured them of our competence, but truth is, nothing is similar to this. I mean that. Nothing.
So how could you be ready for it? Everybody keeps saying that the 620R has a better power-to-weight ratio than the Bugatti Veyron, which as far as I’m concerned is kind of a pointless observation. This has four wheels in common with the Veyron. Such an analogy is flawed. It’s there so the masses can make some sense of just how radical the 620R is.
The Caterham shape is distinctive and synonymous with the name. That basic all-bonnet profile was first sold by Colin Chapman in 1957. That’s 57 years ago! So you could be forgiven for thinking this is just a stripped-down clubman’s car – exciting sure, but not overly fast. Which would be a massive mistake.
Partly because of this: a 2 litre Ford Duratec-based engine that’s been built up by Caterham Racing and had a supercharger bolted on the side. They chose the 2 litre engine instead of the larger capacity 2.3 litre to keep it under the bonnet line… Which means they might have actually considered the bigger motor at some point. If that’s the case, I’m beginning to wonder what kind of mentalists the Caterham engineers are? The best kind from what I’ve seen so far.
There’s not a great deal of room in the nose cone, but what there is has been filled with an alloy radiator and intercooler. The power figure is 310hp, which in today’s numbers might not sound a lot. After all, your friend’s Skyline has got 400hp, right?
Well that’s partly true but what I would add is that the magnificent engine and induction choice are just part of the process. Given how minimal the Caterham is, there’s actually a whole lot more going on here.
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Based on what I’ve heard so far about the 620R, I should be wary. Add in the fact it’s late February and during my drive to the Caterham showroom, I passed through rain and sleet with a forecast threatening the same for the rest of the day. I was actually quite worried. Crashing a manufacturer’s demo car is seriously not cool.
Like I said at the start, fear is a good thing though, so as I’m shown around the controls it all goes straight in. Granted there’s not a huge amount to absorb, but this is what Caterham and the 620R are all about. Just the essential things in life; nothing fancy to dress up. This is the connection I was talking about: nothing superfluous between you and the sensation to dilute the experience.
That said, there are a couple of unnecessary items in the ‘cabin’. Can you spot them? Yup, a button for windscreen wipers and washer. At the time of writing there are two 620Rs in existence, with the first customer cars due for delivery in the Spring of 2014. The other demo car has a screen and washer. I’m guessing that these two buttons will tease me all day.
Because it’s pretty exposed in here and that’s what a car like the 620R does so well – exposes you to all the elements of the drive. The curved carbon wind deflector does a pretty good job if you keep your eye line just above it, but at the very least you need to wear glasses of some kind above 30mph. I’d brought some ski goggles with me that sit snug to my face as I made my way out on to the motorway, headed for Brands Hatch circuit where I met up with Suzy.
This is when I discovered my first friend of the day: the gear indicator. A simple telltale gauge that is worth its weight in carbon. Because if you’ve never driven with a sequential box before, then it can be hard to remember what gear you’re in. That might sound like I don’t know what I’m doing, so I’ll explain.
First up is the noise of the transmission and twin-plate clutch. You have to load the revs up to ensure that the vicious bite of the clutch doesn’t eat the engine’s power and make it stall. It’s as though the transmission is waiting and ready to snatch whatever the Duratec can give it, like a masochistic gearbox ready and loving the abuse it gets. To select first, you pull the lever back. Well, back is an exaggeration. The shift distance could probably be measured in millimetres.
Next you need to pull away and the best way to do this is to launch it. I kid you not. The feeling of aggression you get from the clutch almost questions my machismo from inside the bellhousing. ‘What? Is that it? Is that all you’ve got? How dare you try and ‘slip’ me! WUSS.’
So now you’re rolling, the box is able to take flat shifts. So you pin the throttle and grab gears, just split seconds apart (you can hit 60mph in first!). In my case, the shifts come steadily higher up the rev range as the day goes on and my confidence rises. Your brain tunes out the noise from the exhaust under your elbow as all your other senses scream ‘Hang on, we need help here!’. Your vision tunnels down and you become acutely aware of how near to an accident you’ll be if you disregard any slight loss of traction. I’m passing traffic like I’m entering warp speed.
So given all that, what gear are we in again?
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I can only think that this is what it must feel like to sprint naked across the Superbowl stadium mid-game: daring, exhilarating and quite likely to get you in massive trouble while garnering respect from all around you. Proper ‘Hold my beer, watch this’ action. But the Caterham gives you all this just like a best mate would. You’re not encased in a cockpit or shielded from the world by titanium and glass, this is roar and real. This is the car equivalent of partying with the friend where nights end up in a swimming pool, in a foreign country and you don’t know how you got there. It’s a great place, but what just happened?
But don’t just take my word for it. Suzy pulls up alongside me after driving the Caterham for the first time and laughs out the words ‘This thing’s f***ing mental!’ For added impact I really feel I should help you along with how Suzy sounds when she talks – do you know what acockney is? Let’s not forget her daily driver is a track-prepared Evo. Given that there’s not a lot of her, it amuses me she had to remove a shoe to drive the 620R. Just an excuse to get more pedal feel… Probably.
Without pushing you out of a third floor window, the only other way I can convey the sensation to you is by quoting some factory supplied numbers, which incidentally I have no reason to doubt. First up is a 0-60 time of 2.8 secs… Try and count that now, actually don’t worry it will have taken you roughly 4.6 secs to read this sentence. By which time I will be in the distance somewhere, flat-shifting the sequential box, being squeezed tight by my surroundings. It’s not all about driving like a lunatic (well almost), because going back to my previous gear/memory conundrum, it’s also incredibly drivable in any gear once you’re rolling. At 50mph in sixth gear you can put your foot down and just go. Sure, if you want to drop two, three or even four gears you can, but thanks to that supercharger, the power is there at the bottom of the rev range. Impatiently waiting.
The performance figures are a direct result of the engine power and of course the minimal weight, as the 620R weighs an incredible 545kg (1200lbs). I did an internet search using that weight to see what else was out there to compare to. How does a full-grown leatherback turtle sound? Not good? What about if I said it’s just 40% of the weight of a Pagani Huarya?
What makes me smile about the Caterham is the apparant lack of anything to help you in your fight for control of all this power. There’s a certain honesty in the lack of aerodynamic aids, for example you’re looking at the Aerofoil wishbones.
Then there are these canards on either side of the nose cone – functional, probably, although to me they look like a token gesture. As though you could blame them when you write a talent cheque you can’t cash. ‘Oh I lost front-end grip. A canard, err, didn’t work’.
Because I think I’ve worked out what the Caterham is: it’s a friend who calls you out on things, that won’t let you get away with lying or pretending. The 620R is the truth. It let’s you know how good you are and when you get it right, it’s quite possibly the most connected car with a distinctly separate character I’ve ever driven. If I was faced with the horrible decision of having to choose between this and the BAC Mono, both of which are incredible cars to drive, I’d go with the Caterham because I could high five my buddy after we launch over the horizon at a frankly ridiculous pace.
So the 620R and I are friends. It’s more talented than I am but unless you play with people or things that are better than you, how do you ever expect to improve? It’s been a brief day and as the rain really starts to fall, I head back to the showroom to make sure that it’s in good shape for a weekend of test drives with potential owners. This very car was on Top Gear less than six days ago and suddenly the entire world now wants one.
Merging in with similar shapes, the raucous hooligan is almost lost, but not quite. Because I know its lairy secret, its ability to kill superbikes and even carry shopping (yes there’s luggage space). With the windscreen option fitted, the 620R could almost be considered practical and… No, wait, actually that will never happen. This is the sort of car you drive for half an hour and you need a rest. It’s tiring, demanding, noisy and in the wrong hands, potentially lethal.
crankandpiston has a rare moment of social activity and attends the opening night of Cafe Rider in Dubai.
When the invite to Cafe Rider’s opening night landed on our virtual desk we had a quick confab and immediately decided not to go. It’s not that we have any prejudice or anything against motorcycles and bikers but, with the exception of our man Mo who likes sitting on a Fat Boy and photographer Arun who seems to have fallen off every bike he has ever ridden, we aren’t too clued up on bike culture here at crankandpiston.com. Here, the car is always the star. Add to this mix an opening night full of smelly biker dudes wrestling each other and, well, you get where we are coming from with our extremely unprejudiced point of view.
And then our social media guru Monja only went and called in to Cafe Rider and reported back that “we should attend”. Monja (love that girl) has one of those annoying noses like Samantha from Bewitched that twitches when she senses something cool, normally pertaining to clever design or things of cultural interest. So, with Frau Frorath giving me my marching orders (you’re not the boss of me!) I scuttled across to Cafe Rider to see what the crazy German (love that girl) was on about. Obviously, I went the day before the opening night to avoid getting embroiled in biker wrestling activities.
What greeted me was not what I had been expecting. Not at all. Damn Monja and her twitching nose but she was right! This Cafe Rider joint is a beautiful warehouse affair with a few choice Brass Balls bobbers decorating the open floor space. A glass-walled custom motorcycle garage with the latest project being worked on at one end, comfortable sofa sitting area at the other and a large coffee bar dominating the back wall. Cafe Rider is more than just a bike shop and café, it’s about people. So I decided to venture back for the opening night. Although I was still determined to avoid the wrestling aspect.
Preconceived ideas about anything in life are usually wrong. The collective people gathered at Cafe Rider were all friendly beyond reproach, from every walk of life and with a shared passion for motorcycles and fine coffee. A dude played guitar, welcome speeches were made and I washed down three tasty shawarma with a couple of shots of caffeine from the bar. All-in-all a very enjoyable evening with great people in a fantastic new hang-out in Dubai.
I wouldn’t even have minded wrestling with some of the bikers.
With just a few hours to go before the 2014 Amelia Island Concours begins, we take a look at some of the most enticing car classes – set to draw a total of more than 250 high-end exhibits…
On 7-9 March, the Amelia Island Golf Club will play host to its annual concours d’elegance. Legendary racing driver Jochen Mass will be this year’s honouree; a reunion with his Sauber-Mercedes C9 on the 25th anniversary of their Le Mans win is likely to prove an emotional one. Other milestone anniversaries to be celebrated include McLaren’s 50th and Maserati’s 100th.
Moss's monstrous Maserati and friends
Headlining the centenary toast to Maserati will be the unique 450S Le Mans Coupé, affectionately referred to as ‘Il Mostro’. Penned by Frank Costin and realised in physical form by Zagato (which incidentally has a dedicated class at Amelia, too), other notable associated names include Juan Manuel Fangio and Sir Stirling Moss – the latter having campaigned it at Le Mans in 1957.
RM Auctions at the Ritz-Carlton
Now in its 16th year, the RM sale at Amelia’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel will see the gavel lifted on no fewer than 90 upper-echelon cars, including 16 from the Pray Collection – the most highly anticipated being the 1937 Delahaye Torpedo Roadster by Figoni et Falaschi. The late Mr Pray’s wife affectionately named it his ‘French Mistress’ – and several other automotive concubines that have enjoyed many years of single-ownership are to be found in the lotlist.
Return of the Batmobiles
The BMW ‘Batmobile’ class at this year’s Amelia will be crowned by one of the most famous CSLs of all: Alexander Calder’s Art Car. The first in a succession of famous BMWs draped in the designs of topical artists, it was also famously entered into the 1975 Le Mans 24 Hours – a perfect marketing companion to the newly introduced ‘Ultimate Driving Machine’ campaign that endures to this day.
Jolly good fun
“For an event like ‘The Amelia’, a class of beach cars is appropriate and ideal,” points out Amelia Concours founder Bill Warner. “After all, when you take a break from the concours field and sit on the veranda at the Ritz-Carlton with a cool drink in front of you, you stare at the ocean and the beach.” At Warner's behest, numerous ‘Jolly’ beach cars will form on a (perhaps sand-covered?) section of the field, with exhibits including the Fiat Multipla-based Eden Roc by Pinin Farina.
