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Posted by Peter Jones
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Sunday, 20 September 1998 |
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Page 1 of 4
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It’s Got Personality, Poise, and Charm. It’s also Got Power
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Story by Peter Jones ~ Photos by Blake Conner
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The original Interceptor of 1983 was a motorcycle that completely changed our expectations of the 750 sportbike class. It had an external square-section frame, a V-four engine, a 16-inch front wheel, and it provided the street rider with everything of which racers dreamed. It was high-tech to the bone and the trend it started is still in place today. The Interceptor name is now back on the VFR because Honda wants everyone to know that this bike is again meant to make a statement. Much has changed though and that’s a big expectation in today’s world. |
| While other manufacturers build 750 supersport bikes that are basically racebikes for the street, Honda took a different route a number of years ago and separated its street machine from its roadracer. The latest Interceptor, like the many VFRs before it, takes design clues from its brother RC45 but, other than having a 90-degree V-4 engine and a single-sided swingarm, it is a completely different motorcycle. It doesn’t much matter to Honda that the irony of all this is that the first Interceptor was the 750 sportbike that started the whole racebike-with-mirrors-and-blinkers thing. Just because they started a trend doesn’t mean they have to stick with it. |
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The Interceptor stopped being an all-out sportbike when its racing duties were handed over to Honda’s full race RC30. The Interceptor became docile, friendly, and smart, while the RC30 was given the racebike-with-mirrors-and-blinkers duties. This split allowed Honda to build a streetbike that was actually meant to be just a streetbike and to also take its built-for-racing homologation machine to an extreme that was impractical for the street. Well, maybe not impractical but certainly very expensive.
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| At the same time that the RC30 replaced the Interceptor on the racetrack, the Interceptor name was dropped, reportedly for fear of a growing backlash from the insurance industry and the non-motorcycling public. It was thought that names like Interceptor and Hurricane expressed an evil, irresponsible, speed-crazy attitude and flaunted the image of law breaking bikers, hell-bent on destruction and violation of school zone speed limits. For some reason, that fear of societal repercussions is now absent. Maybe motorcycles are more acceptable to the general public now? Maybe Honda has lawyers who are brasher? Who knows? Either way we are happy. |
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