The greatest motorcycle ever.

With 100 million made and counting it’s great news that Honda’s Super Cub motorcycle is being reintroduced in the US. The original dates from 1958.

The original ‘step through’ bike. This is the new version.

The step through design meant that ladies did not have to show their undergarments to all and sundry when getting on – or getting off for that matter – and Honda paired the roll-out with the greatest motorcyle campaign ever.

The greatest bike ad ever – June 1963.

The Super Cub was revolutionary in so many ways it’s hard to know where to begin. It had a four stroke engine whose low compression ratio made the use of the lowest octane gas possible and obviated the need for an electric starter, which was an option. The plastic fairing, a first, provided excellent weather protection for the rider and the top speed of 40+mph was all you needed in crowded western and eastern cities. The chain was enclosed to keep oil off the rider’s legs and the DIY maintenance was so simple anyone could perform it. The semi-automatic gearbox deleted that pesky clutch, meaning even women could ride the Super Cub when not in the kitchen or in labor.

But it was that magical advertising campaign which made all the difference. Watch The Who’s ‘Quadrophenia’ and you see warring mods – on scooters and neatly dressed – fighting rockers – on bikes and in leather jackets – beating one another up in Brighton. What else was there to do in early 1960s London on a weekend, after all? Then along comes Honda with this:

Not just for poor eastern nations.

This was fun transportation for people who did not have grease in their hair or under their fingernails and who dressed like nice preppies in upper end western hemisphere culture.

That $215 in 1966 was actually a bargain. Using CPI data that computes to $1,675 today whereas the Super Cub is coming back to the US at $3,599. But you get a tremendous increase in technology and reliability compared with the already reliable original. The 50cc engine is now 125cc, the brakes are hydraulic disks, not drums, all lighting is LED, ABS is standard and was but a dream 50 years ago, the wheels are cast not spoked and the tires are the far safer tubeless variety as a result. Fuel injection? But of course.

My Honda scooter, bought 15 months ago and now with 2,000 miles on the clock may look fancier but the Super Cub is a classic.

Do the environment a favor and help destroy Middle East and Russian hegemony over oil supplies. Get a Super Cub and extend your life expectancy.

A day in the sun.

Motorcycles used to be single brand things in the store. In the UK of my youth any self respecting high street would have several such stores from Triumph (died in 1983), BSA (1972), Matchless (1966) and Royal Enfield (1971) for the lowest demographic, through to the Velocette (1971), AJS (1969) and Norton (1975) stores for the higher tuned machines with racing aspirations, then onto the high end which meant Vincent (1955) and BMW (which continues merrily to this day).

With one exception, all the great British marques failed owing to crappy engineering, with little reinvestment in modern production machinery and newer designs, the same curse which destroyed most of British industry while louche aspirants to power like Margaret Thatcher saw to it that Britain became a financialized nation centered in London, making precisely nothing, while shuffling paper denominating debt and real estate.

The one exception was Vincent which went under because of that generic British curse, lousy management. But without doubt, above all these self-inflicted wounds, the one machine which destroyed British motorcycle manufacture was the Honda CB750 of 1969, an across the frame, air cooled four which did all the things British machines did not. It started first thing, sported a powerful engine, had an electric starter, was reliable as a hammer and never leaked oil. Honda got there after making smaller predecessors like their fine 125, 175, 250 and 400 multis, all leading up to the killer 750.

So now the high street line up – this is the early 1970s – found one brand stores from Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki, the ‘Big Four’, all making superb, powerful, beautifully executed multis. And, of course, BMW, with its staid but reliable and oh-so-well-made twins.

Then the accountants started to take over and today the single brand store no longer exists, unless you consider Harley-Davidson and the ever failing Indian. We can disregard those as they are restricted to PTSD sufferers who were once pawns of the Pentagon, fighting yet another losing war while having their guts vaporized along with their grey cells, such as they were.

They buy motorcycles not to ride but to commiserate.

For the other big name manufacturers, the chances that you will find many brands under one roof are high. One such (very large) roof is GOAZ Motorcycles near my home in Scottsdale, Arizona where on one lot you will find Triumph (resurrected and alive), BMW, Aprilia, KTM, Ducati, Vespa/Piaggio, the Big Four and Ducati. And let’s not forget the Ural, a Russian piece of garbage with a sidecar sold only to the criminally insane.

Every fall, in the first week of autumn (the start of our riding season, as you can no longer fry an egg unaided on the sidewalk), GOAZ holds a vintage motorcycle show where exhibitors (like me) are required to pay a $15 entry fee to show their old machines. Strange economics. Shouldn’t the gawking visitors be paying? It’s a fun show not least because Harleys and their owners are not welcome (there’s the world’s largest HD dealership next door for these knuckle draggers, complete with tattoo parlor and wedding chapel. The dealership actually makes more money from clothing sales than from bikes but the profit leader is the service section because, you know, Harleys make pre-war British bikes look like exemplars of reliability. No, I am not making any of this up.)

The 2018 fall show was held today and my much ridden 1975 BMW R90/6 was again on display, accompanied by lovely old Ducatis, Benellis, Moto Guzzis, British bikes aplenty, lots of vintage Japanese iron, Vespa and Lambretta scooters and on and on.

All snaps on the iPhone7 in HDR mode.

BMW, of course.

BMW has been making motorcycles with air cooled twin motors since 1921. While the line was discontinued in 1995 in search of more power for children who think that 100hp is called for in a single track vehicle, the design layout continues in air and oil cooled twins to this day from the BMW factory. Sure the charm and light weight have been lost but the design is as right today as it was almost a century ago.

The 900cc motor at left is in a 1975 R90/6 which is now in my 29th year of ownership. The fully faired touring rig on the right is a tad larger at 1,000cc. Both develop around 60hp, perfectly adequate for touring at 70mph all day long. The beauty of these air cooled twins is that the cylinders are way out there in the air stream, so no oil or water cooling is called for. While the later machine sports a small oil cooler it’s quite unnecessary in practice. A related benefit is that the design means that the center of gravity is very low indeed, making maneuvering at low speeds child’s play. Try horsing that high mounted Japanese ‘across the frame’ four around at parking lot speeds and you will get my drift.

Each cylinder has its own carburetor, as is clear in the image. These share the same technology present in the 1921 version and are as reliable as a hammer. Periodic valve lash check-ups and adjustments are very easy as the valve covers are simply removed (two nuts and one bolt), giving full access to the valves and followers. Rapacious and unnecessary demands for ever more power doomed these machines, which remain firm favorites with touring riders for their quietness, freedom from vibration and comfort. 300,000 miles on one of these engines is no big deal.

The last time horizontally opposed, air cooled motors were used in cars was in the original four cylinder VW Beetle and four and six cylinder Porsches, before both went to water cooling. The modern Subaru uses the design in a water cooled variant and the motors are also famously long lived.

iPhone7 snap.