1995 Honda Shadow American Classic Edition

1995 HONDA SHADOW AMERICAN CLASSIC EDITION

CW RIDING IMPRESSION

HONDA HONES THE HARLEY FORMULA

TALK ABOUT DECEPTIONS! There you are, laid back in an easily identifiable riding posture, knees around a tank you’d know anywhere, listening to a V-Twin exhaust rumble you recognize instantly.

Nope, you’re not riding any Harley. You’re aboard the 1995 Honda Shadow 1100 American Classic Edition, a machine wrapped in the classic American look. What it is, is Honda’s anti-Harley. An overstatement? Rampant hyperbole, even? Well, maybe not. The American Classic Edition not only captures classic American custom styling as defined by a long line of H-D products, it’s also built in the U.S., in Honda’s Marysville, Ohio, plant.

The American Classic Edition began as a top-secret program codenamed Project Phoenix-particularly appropriate, since it was meant to help rebuild an almost moribund cruiser market. This market now is growing strongly, and Honda aims to cash in with this bike.

Honda has built cruisers for years, and they’ve been about as successful as other Japanese cruisers. Which is to say, they’ve played a distant second fiddle to Harley-Davidson, not only in sales but also in style. American Honda chief stylist Martin Manchester took direct aim at this by homing in on the notion that nostalgia sells. He rounded up what he identified as classic American styling cues, tried the ones he liked on the standard Shadow 1100, kept the ones that worked, tossed out the ones that didn’t, and sent the result to Japan for fine-tuning and final approval. The American Classic Edition is the result.

It is a kind of Super Shadow-super for a number of reasons, not least of which is its high style. It gets that style from its made-over engine, from a new set of fenders, from spoke wheels instead of the standard Shadow’s cast units (the front uses a nice three-cross lacing design), from a slightly enlarged and reshaped fuel tank, from staggered exhaust pipes, from a different handlebar and from three paint schemes done in a variety of color choices.

The truly initiated will tell you that there’s more to HarleyDavidson’s astounding success than exterior style, however. An essential element of the H-D equation is the charismatic feel and sound of the Harley engine-a sound one Honda spokesman characterized as, no kidding, “potato-potato-potato.” That characteristic sound and rhythm is the result of both connecting rods in Harley’s 45-degree V-Twins being driven off a single crankshaft pin. The Shadow, also a 45-degree VTwin, has two crank pins, oriented 90 degrees apart. That’s a better way to quell the engine’s dynamic forces, but it doesn’t reproduce the sound of nostalgia.

So Honda did a rethink of the Shadow engine, and modified it for use in the American Classic. The first change was to adopt a single crank pin in a successful effort to capture the traditional American sound. Next, the cylinders were recast to add more fins and to internalize oil passages that are external on the standard Shadow. Honda reshaped the bolton cylinder-head fins to make the engine look more massive, restyled the cam covers for the same reason, and painted the cylinder and head, and their associated fins, black, then polished the edges of the fins. Cam timing was recalibrated to move peak power from 5500 rpm to 4500 rpm, a ratio was added to the transmission, making it a five-speed. And perhaps most important, now that its engineers had designed vibration into the engine as a by-product of its single-pin Harley potato-potato sound, Honda revamped the enginemount system-the standard Shadow engine is hard-bolted to its frame—with six rubber mountings to make sure those vibes don’t reach the rider. To accommodate this change, the American Classic’s frame gets heavier-gauge front downtubes and an extra crossbar between those tubes-you’ll find that right behind the top of the radiator.

So what we have here is less than an all-new motorcycle, but much more than just another Shadow. The revisions that created the American Classic Edition have completely reshaped the Shadow 1100, giving it a personality and feel all its own.

You feel that as soon as you throw a leg over the bike, settle into the seat, and shake hands with its big, wide handlebar. The riding position is accommodating, with the bar lower and wider, and the footpegs lower, more forward and slightly farther apart than the standard Shadow’s.

Twist the key-located, Sportster-like, down on the left, under the tank-punch

the starter button. What blurbles up to your ears from the staggered exhausts is a hearty back-beat boogie that makes you want to jump on and dance down the road.

You won’t be disappointed when you accept the Classic’s invitation. Once you get past a prolonged warm-up period-the lean-carbureted engine wants its choke kept on for at least five minutes, even on moderate momings-the Classic reveals itself as a competent and easy-going traveling companion.

On the road the American Classic feels like a Shadow-that’s what it is, after all. Its steering is slow and deliberate, with any tendency towards heaviness overcome by the leverage from the wide handlebar. Like the standard Shadow, the fork could use more damping, as it rebounds too quickly from bumps. And its rear, well, this is a cruiser, and

as such, has minimal rear-suspension travel. What travel there is, is well-damped. But a heavy bump will send a strong impact right up the rider’s spinal column. Better not ride with your tongue between your teeth.

Brakes do a good job of burning off speed, though a firm grip on the frontbrake lever is required. Can you ever have enough brakes? We doubt it. We wish the Classic had

a pair of discs up front, instead of its single rotor. There is an extra disc, though. It’s on the rear wheel, in place of the drum brake found on the mundane Shadow. And because the bike’s wheelbase is comparatively long, its rear brake’s power can be put to effective use.

The oddball and very retro heel-and-toe shifter is a bit less effective. It’s a nice stab at nostalgia, but thank heavens the toe portion of the rocker-style shift lever is padded with a round shift rubber. You can use your toe to both upand downshift, leaving the heel shifter for looks. Shifting itself is smooth and precise, with the ratios almost exactly matching the torque curve of the engine, and once you’re at about 35 mph, you can click into fifth gear and leave it there. There’s plenty of power on tap, and the engine is willing to respond to any reasonable request.

Oh, that elaborate engine-mounting system? Don’t ever doubt that it is required. With its single-pin crank, the Classic’s engine is a real shaker, and the rider gets a definite feel of its vibes. You feel them most strongly in your knees, through the tank. You also feel them, but less so, through the footpegs and seat. The handlebar? Nope. That’s rubbermounted. All you get from that is a nice sense of satisfaction from the well finished, and smoothly operating, switchgear.

What this all amounts to is the best Japanese cruiser yet. Never mind that to come up with it, Honda’s styling department had to look into yesterday. And never mind that its engineers did, too. The result works. The Honda Shadow 1100 American Classic Edition is beautifully styled and finished. It’s a motorcycle in the American idiom, built in an American city, a city that’s even got its own emerging culture of fine brewing. How much more American can the Shadow get? Not very. Jon F. Thompson