Motorcycles That Aged Well: Once Overlooked, Now Admired

Like aged wine, it becomes more satisfying, more refreshing, more valuable, more appreciated, and more intoxicating. Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. In today's episode, we'll discuss those bikes that were shunned or dismissed when they first came out, but have since developed cult-like Now, many of these bikes have aged better than we expected. In some cases, they've launched entire model lines where the same model is still produced with a dedicated audience. You meet the nicest people on a Honda. That ad campaign was trying to change the outlaw image of motorcyclists into practical transportation when the Super Cub launched in 1958, and it's often been credited with breaking the mold. It was a radical design to bikes of the era, and, as will become a common theme, journalists just didn't get it and thought it would flop. Honda told the press that they expected sales of about 30,000 units per month, but the press misheard that and thought that they actually meant per year, and yet they were still skeptical. The four horsepower was an huge increase from Honda's previous moped, but not high enough to really be intimidating. And Honda's instinct turned out to be better than motorcycle journalists, And the Super Cub has sold 50 million units by the end of 2005. And by 2017, it had doubled that to more than a hundred million units, making it the most popular vehicle, not just motorcycle of all time. And then we have some bikes that have started in a new category of bikes. They've really launched these bikes that people just weren't expecting And a great example of that was in 1980, BMW launched the GS, the R80 GS to be specific. and most of the journalists were just looking at this and couldn't wrap their head around it. They looked at this and said, this thing doesn't make any sense. It's way too heavy for Most dirt bikes are single cylinder, lightweight models. And a big twin 800cc engine were thought of as cumbersome and too heavy for off-road. And there was no clear category. ADV bikes didn't exist as a concept back in 1980. So journalists didn't know what they were supposed to compare the bike to. And it had funky aesthetics. It was not something that looked like a normal road going bike. It had this high front fender. It had a small cowl. There was unconventional paint colors to the bike. It just didn't make a lot of sense. And journalists didn't get it either. But the public did. Maybe not in the same numbers that you would see today, but it did really capture the imagination of people. And over the next 40 some odd years, this has really blossomed to become the most popular category of motorcycling on the market today. And BMW actually expected only about 3000 units in the first But they ended up selling more than 6000. So it's completely smashed expectations. And today across the larger 1300cc boxer line of the GS, the mid-size 800 to 900cc parallel twin, and the 300cc single cylinder GS bmw is selling over 100,000 GS models every single year. It's leading sales charts for the most popular category of motorcycles globally. More than 1. 5 million GS have been sold since the original 1980 model the press dismissed as "why". So let's switch gears into another bike that really redefined a category. Back in 1974, Honda released a model to capture the demand for a long distance travel machine. Offering a four-cylinder boxer engine and a shaft drive, the intrinsically balanced motor was smooth for long highway runs, and originally it was a naked bike, so the intended use case was really unclear or confusing. Now, over time, the bike has gained much more body work, and today it has lots of wind protection and storage, making it one of the top touring bikes on the market today. And original models are still desired today, just to have a little bit of history of that well-regarded initial model. Now, this bike I'm talking about, of course, is the Honda Goldwing, and think about that. It got its early start in 1974, and here we are 50-some-odd years later, and the Goldwing is still thought of as a premier top-end touring bike, and it was something that Honda decided we actually need this back then. Let's look at a couple of other groups of bikes that really have aged a bit better than expected. And these are going to be some bikes that might have been resurrections of some prior models, or maybe there were parts bin bikes, where they kind of took bikes that existed out there and brought them together. And one of the first ones that I want to start with actually is from Ducati. Now, Ducati Supersports were loved by their riders, but not really by the insurance companies, because when you crashed, it was really, really expensive to repair that bike. All that body work was thousands upon thousands of dollars to replace. removing much of the busted up bodywork and replacing it with a simpler round headlight and just the tank. And that was how they kept their bike going, where it was thousands of dollars worth of damage, but the mechanical part of the bike was okay. And they sort of created these super-naked bikes. Well, Ducati saw the simplicity and in 1993 launched what became known as the Ducati Monster. This was a factory naked bike, stripped of the bodywork of a sport bike and sporting a very simple round headlight. In fact, lead designer Miguel Angel Galuzzi famously summed up his thinking with the phrase, all you need is a saddle, tank, engine, two wheels, and handlebars. Now, the minimalist approach, it really shocked industry commenters. Like the George Pompidou Center in Paris, the Monster exposed all of the inner workings of the motorcycle. It was a gamble, unlike any other bike of the era. And at the time, Ducati was on the verge of financial collapse. They planned a conservative thousand units of production in the first year, but were shocked when orders filled the full year's planned build with initial orders. And they struggled to work with component suppliers to get more credit, to bump production up to 5,000 units, yet customers still kept snapping them up. And back in 1997, when I actually was getting license, I actually went into a MSF course. I took the course and my instructor, I asked him, oh, what kind of bike do you ride? And sure enough, he had a Ducati Monster. Only launched a handful of years earlier, but this was the bike that a lot of the people who knew how to ride so well that they were teaching a class on it were riding. And today, the Monster is still thought of as a great bike. And nostalgia for the original trellis frame keeps the desire for these 90s vintage bikes in high demand. Now, the next bike I'm going to discuss is a bike that maybe is a little pushing the envelope of a bike that has aged better than expected. But it was certainly a bike that didn't make the ends meet, if we're kind of call the truth about it. And this was the Triumph Bonneville. Now, the original run of the Triumph Bonneville ran from 1959 to 1983. And today, this is often referred to as the Meriden-era bikes and so named for the location of where the factory was. Now, Triumph was a popular brand in the post-war era, often thought of as a performance bike and often the starting base for bikes like cafe racers. And the Bonneville was named after the Salt Flats used for high-speed runs in the Western US. And it was launched as a 1959 model. It carried on until 1983, which seemed like a really good run for the model. you The thing is, Triumph as a motorcycle brand went under in 1983 going into receivership. It had been struggling to compete with Japanese brands that were cheaper, better made, and more powerful. And the Bonneville and other bikes under the original Triumph just couldn't get the market share that they needed to be an ongoing concern. And so John Bloor actually ended up buying the manufacturing and the naming rights, and he licensed the name to Lee Harris in order to keep a uninterrupted production going until the new Triumph could really build up modern infrastructure. And this was very small. It was like dozens of bikes per year. It was really not a significant amount of production. But in 1991, they came out with a new model of the Bonneville, and this was going to be produced in Hinckley. Thus, we call these new Triumph bikes the Hinckley bikes. Well, the new Bonnevilles fit perfectly with the nostalgia that was going on in the 90s, and they maintained that same look and feel of the older 1960s vintage bikes. And while the retro bikes allowed Triumph to return to large-scale production, they also helped fund the development of many other models. So this resurrection of the Bonneville really kind of tells the story of how a bike that it had been, you know, well-received, but then it kind of floundered in the market. But it could come back when you honed everything and got every dimension that you need correct. And timing mattered. The retro 90s was the key. the next group of bikes are bikes that really broke styling rules. These are bikes that were really out there, at least visually, and were not necessarily well-received, both by journalists and oftentimes by the buying public And the first of these is the Honda Pacific Coast. Sometimes it's been called a Tupperware bike, but the Pacific Coast had a styling that was unusual at the time, and even since. The front wheel was covered by a lot of cladding to help with aerodynamics. It had a wraparound trunk. And this was really the most distinctive element of this bike released in 1989. The trunk literally wrapped around the rear wheel, but it was integrated with the rest of the bodywork. These weren't separate, distinct saddlebags, rather literally a bike with a trunk. And 14,000 units were produced in nearly a decade of production. But today, people recognize this unique styling and how it was also functional. And it started to take on a new life of appreciating that and wanting it. So it's becoming a little bit higher demand than perhaps it ever was over its entire run. If we go back to the 1980s, BMW wasn't really known for making classically beautiful motorcycles. And the K1 was no different. Released in 1988, the K1 focused on aerodynamics to make a good touring bike. And 100 horsepower gave it a good amount of power for the time. But the 570 pounds of weight limited how fast it could go. But some of the early paint jobs looked like they took inspiration from Ronald McDonald. They had bright yellow and red body work and a giant K1 text emblazoned along the sides. Painted wheels in one of the matching colors of the body made the bike look almost like a toy. They produced under 7,000 units in the five-year production run. So it was not a sales runaway. But today the K1 is actually highly sought after because they recognize how groundbreaking a bike it truly was. But with so few units produced, finding one in working order is even harder. And they are commanding very high prices. Now 1999 brought us the Hayabusa. It was a technological achievement. But the body work felt less like a bike that was designed for looks and more like one that was focused on aerodynamics. And today the groundbreaking nature of that bike and the power it brought to the table along with the performance are highly regarded. It produced 173 horsepower before the new millennium. The power it produced just blew the public's mind because this was something that was so groundbreaking. Today we hear of 170, 200 sport bikes and we're just like, oh yeah, okay, they exist, not a big deal. This more than 25 years ago. This was crazy to have that much power in a road bike. And today the Hayabusa is still on the market, although the original sort of bloated fish appearance has been smoothed out a little bit more. But when it first came out, it was ugly. That was sort of the impression. Thank you. I talked about how BMW was not exactly thought of as building beautiful bikes. And so it's kind of a thing that Suzuki decided to turn to a German three-person team led by Hans for Suzuki to build the Suzuki Katana. And it was a bit controversial in its styling. Now Hans Muth, of course, had been the styling lead for BMW. And while the bikes that the Germans had produced were technically impressive, the looks were generally not thought of as highly. So it's not a surprise that the Katana looks like it could have worn a BMW badge when it was released as a 1981 model. And much like many of the older BMW models, the Katana now enjoys a resurgence in popularity, with many realizing how innovative and groundbreaking some of the early models were. Now in the early 2000s, custom bikes were seeing a huge rise in popularity. And Honda really wanted to try to cash in on this. Launched as a 2004 model, the Honda Rune was largely viewed as a styling failure when it came out. It might have succeeded a little bit better if it had been released a few years earlier in the more retro-focused 90s. But its long R&D phase meant that it cost effectively nearly $150, 000 per bike. Yet they sold them for just $25, 000. So Honda lost a ton of money on that bike. But in more recent years, people are looking at the Honda Rune with a little bit more of a rose-colored glasses going on. They're looking at this and realizing just how groundbreaking and how innovative it was from a design exercise. And it's becoming a little bit more sought after. So this bike has really, it failed terribly when it first came out. But it is gaining a lot more attention today. Now the BMW R1200C was BMW's first cruiser. It maintained many of the classic elements of a BMW. A boxer engine, drive shaft. And visually, the telelever suspension was stylized with more of an organic shape than the typical flat support that you saw on most of the other bikes. And the kidney bean design that was common on BMW cars was carried over the elements near the headlight. And even with a branding deal with the James Bond film franchise, seeing the bike featured in the 1997 film Tomorrow Never Dies, brought a lot of attention to the bike. But it didn't really bring as many paying customers. It was even featured in the 1998 Art of the Motorcycle Show at the Guggenheim in New York City, recognizing the design intrigue of the bike. And so while there were those who viewed it as really interesting, it really wasn't something that American cruiser riders liked. They didn't like the quote-unquote small 1200cc engine, and the detuned 60 horsepower wasn't creating a lot of oomph, and quite frankly, torque either. Now the line had numerous other variants that were attempted over the years, but it was finally shut down in 2004 after just seven years. It was still popular enough to build about 40,000 units in those seven years, but the attraction to the model kind of grew with collectors as the bike was no longer available. And this is sort of a running theme. Bikes if maybe the manufacturer had kept it going a little longer, might have hit its real blossoming, but it's now grown into And I think when the release of the 2020 R18 came out now had another cruiser, it started to shine more of a light onto the R1200C. And people looked back on that and said, oh, wow, that was actually kind of a cool bike. It wasn't a super powerful bike, but it was kind of cool. And I remember when it first came out, I actually test rode that bike. I liked it. I enjoyed it. Just not enough to buy but it was cool. And that's the thing is that this new renewed interest in the R1200C has come back. So we covered what has become the most popular vehicle of all time, the Honda Super Cub with more than 100 million units produced since 1958. But it was thought of as it was going to be a complete flop by journalists when it was first announced. We also covered some category busters like the original BMW R80 GS, the Honda Goldwing, and even the Ducati Monster, We looked at resurrections of old models like the Triumph Bonneville that failed in its first iteration and actually took the whole company down with it, but has since become one of the major driving models for a global brand. We also covered risque styling outfits like the Honda Pacific Coast, the BMW K1, the Hayabusa, and the Honda Rune. And these bikes were vilified when they first came out, but like Apple's iconic Think Different ad, about the only thing you can't do is ignore them. so my question for you this week, is there a bike you hated when it first came out that you've gained admiration for over time? Share your thoughts through the text the show link in the show notes or leave a voicemail at throttle and roast dot com slash voicemail. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you next week.