Description
By: Rob Simmonds .
Tadao Baba of Honda research and development, had a dream. It was to build a superbike for the masses that truly deserved the title of 'sportsbike'.
Ignoring the marketing men's calls for more speed and more weight, Baba-san and his team built a machine pared down to the bone on weight, while fleshing it out with the biggest, most powerful engine they could fit into the frame. The result was the Honda CBR900RR FireBlade – which had the turning ability of a 400cc machine, the weight of a 600 and the monster power of the then-latest 1-litre plus leviathans.
All these elements combined to produce an intoxicating machine, one which left its sportsbike rivals in its wake. For six years the opposition was beaten. Beaten on performance, beaten on value, and beaten on sales. On the race track too, the FireBlade at last started to make its mark, winning the tough Production TT race, which made a return to the Isle of Man in 1996.
With around 20,000 FireBlades sold across the UK alone, following its launch in 1992, the 'Blade has won an army of bike-riding fans and deserves a place in any two-wheeled hall of fame. Since introduction, updated versions have given thousands of motorcyclists around the world an unrivalled mix of looks, performance and attitude which have made the FireBlade a modern classic. Here, for the first time, is the story of the machine and the people behind it that broke the sportsbike mould.
Author Rob Simmonds is a motorcycle journalist who has worked for Motor Cycle News and Bike magazine and is now a press officer for Cosworth Technology.
