Description
Author: John Wyatt, Photography by James Mann, ISBN: 9781906133405, 128 pages, published/reprinted in 2014, Hardback
- The definitive guide to medel evolution and 100% originality
- All production versions covered in depth
- More than 220 specially commissioned colour photographs
- Hundreds of details illustrated
- Minutely researched text covers original specifications and equipment.
All the across-the-frame four-cylinder Hondas that have monopolised motorcycle sales throughout the world on and off since the 1970s owe their existence to the CB750 introduced in 1968. The 750 thereafter uniquely influenced motorcycle design, and possibly the very concept of motorcycling, in the case of all the major manufacturers, and not Honda alone.
Although the Japanese companies had effectively changed the face of motorcycling in Europe and the USA in the years up to 1968 with a multitude of well-engineered models, their success had been in the main achieved through a painstaking process of
improving and elaborating on the traditional outline of the motorcycle as laid down long before by the established makers of Italy and Britain. The CB750 changed all that. This was no careful, uprated, well-made variation on an antique theme. It was well made, all right, but overwhelmingly it was new. Revolutionary, some people said — and it is easy even today to see what they meant. It had a four-cylinder engine as big as a small cars and more powerful, disc braking, a 120-130mph top speed — and above all there was the sheer impressive size and weight of it. As was soon revealed, it also had amazing, car-like reliability.
The author of this book, raised on British bikes, came to the CB750 35 years ago. His first ride caused him to adjust his standards and expectations in motorcycling. Drawing on his experience as a private owner and a professional restorer, he has transcribed CB750 lore into a detailed account of the many variations of big four that have served motorcyclists during and beyond the 1968- 78 production span of the model. As is customary in the 'Original' series, an authoritative text is matched by over 200 colour photographs specially commissioned to illustrate just about every external feature, large and small, that helped make Honda's sohc CB750 the most important motorcycle of its time.
About the Author:
John Wyatt says that a long, comfortable, fast and breakdown-free ride on a CB750 changed all his ideas about motorcycling. Previous to that memorable outing in the early 1970s he had become almost resigned to the vibratory and unreliable — though exhilarating — ways of lesser motorbikes. Now, for the first time, he was able to savour the traditional joys of motorcycling together with unprecedented reliability. It was, he recalls, a revelation.
Following years of touring and racing with various models from the CB750 range, during which he enlarged his practical knowledge of the breed, he turned a hobby into a full-time business when he established Rising Sun Restorations in 1988. Since that time, at his North Yorkshire purpose-built workshops he has specialised in the three Rs of motorcycling — repairing, renovating, restoring — to the benefit of dozens of sohc Hondas, winning several classic-show awards on the way. He remains as enthusiastic as ever about motorcycles, particularly CB750s, to the extent that he invariably has a minimum of three concoursstandard machines under wraps in the warmth of the family kitchen. This is his first book.
A keen motorcycle enthusiast and owner, James Mann is a freelance photographer specialising in both car and motorcycle photography. His work has appeared in a number of bike magazines as well as in Classic & Sports Car, Autocar and Autosport. It has also featured in other books in the 'Original' series, most recently in Onginal Vincent Motorcycle. He shot all the photographs in this book on Fuji Velvia and Previa film, using Nikon F4 and Mamiya RZ67 cameras.
