The Curious Case of the Missing Hurricane

THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE MISSING HURRICANE

ONE LOOK AT THE REDESIGNED AND IMPROVED 1989 CBR 1000 and American buyers are going to feel cheated. That’s because the bike will not be coming to the U.S., forcing buyers who want an Open-class sportbike from Honda to settle for an unsold 1988 Hurricane, if they can find a dealer who happens to have one in stock.

In light of that situation, we asked American Honda’s assistant vice-president of motorcycle marketing, Ray Blank, to explain why the rest of the world gets the CBR 1000 while riders in the U.S. have to make do with a limited number of last year's bikes.

“It’s quite simple,” Blank said. “We still have more Hurricane 1000s at the dealer level (as of December, 1988) than we sold last year. That told us that we had more than enough machines available.”

You can understand Honda's current caution about leftover motorcycles when you consider that just a few years ago, all the Japanese manufactures found themselves in tremendous trouble by having a surplus of motorcycles that they could not sell. So rather than take the risk once again of having a warehouse full of unsold motorcycles, Honda will sell the old Hurricanes before bringing in a new model.

Of course, you have to wonder how much the current governmental attitude towards—not to mention insurance-industry bans against—high-performance sportbikes influenced Honda’s play-it-safe decision. Blank claimed it had no bearing at all; that the decision was based solely on the market situation.

Other Honda employees feel differently. “If Honda brings in one more high-performance bike, the government will be on us faster than you can imagine,’’one insider told us.

But Blank asserted, “Honda is not abandoning the enthusiast segment, nor the high-performance market. We are not out of the sportbike business by any means.” When pressed to comment on the future possibilities of a new 750cc or lOOOcc sportbike from Honda coming to the U.S., Blank would give no specifics, but he did say the future “looks good” for those bikes.

That’s about as vague as you can get, but we take it to mean that if you are in a hurry for a big sportbike from Honda, you might as well get one now, because it is very unlikely that we will be seeing anything new in the performance category for at least the next season. —Camron E. Bussard