The making of The King of Motorcycles- the Honda CB750

In 1967, Bob Hansen was American Honda's national service manager. He recalls the first time he heard about the CB750 while on a trip to the home office in Japan to discuss products for the American market.

The CB750, which was just chosen as “The Motorcycle of the Century” by Motorcyclist Magazine, was known around Honda as “Project 300”. Hansen was taking a tour of the research and development department where he was going to meet Soichiro Honda for lunch.

There was one section of the facility that was closed off to his group. When Hansen inquired about the forbidden area, the guide told him, “I can’t take you over there. We’re testing a new engine for a big motorcycle.”

Hansen was intrigued. He guessed that Honda was adapting the 598 cc twin-cylinder engine from the N600 automobile for use in a motorcycle. That made sense since it was then the largest engine Honda built.

While seated to the right of Mr. Honda at lunch, Honda leaned over and said, “Mr. Hansen, we are hard at work on a new motorcycle, a big motorcycle, the King of Motorcycles.”

Hansen said, “Great—I just hope it’s not a twin!”

This went through the translator, then Mr. Honda looked worried. ‘Why would you say that?’

Hansen explained that twins were seen as outdated and even the Triumph was currently working on a triple. Hansen recommended a four-cylinder.

“We have experience racing four-cylinders,” Mr. Honda said.

Hansen replied, “Exactly.”

Hanging on Hansen's wall today is a framed letter from Honda. It reads: Because it was your idea to Mr. Honda to build the four cylinder CB750, we are sending you the very first pictures of the production version.

In the fall of 1968, three CB750s were sent to the Nevada desert for testing along with a van full of tools and Japanese engineers. Hansen hand-picked two of his staff, Bob Jameson and Bob Young, to participate in the testing.

The team ran from Boulder city to Searchlight 50 miles each way for nearly 5000 miles in 5 days. Their only directive was to never leave the red zone on the tach. They tried to see what would break first on the new motorcycles.

Nothing broke.

Jameson was blown away. “It was a total breakthrough in motorcycling. At that time I’d ridden just about everything. These first CB750s were like going straight from the Stone Age into the Computer Age. And they were so fast!”

[Motorcyclist Magazine]