IN THE JAPANESE CORNER…R…
When it comes to exotica from m Japan, you’re pretty much looking at homol logation special superbikes from the 1990s an nd early 2000s. There are a few bikes which have gone stratospheric in terms of mon ney, and while a Honda RC30 or RC45 will be a lot cheaper tha an a Ducati Superleggera, a lowmileage minter will still be in the tens of thousands.
Bikes like the Suzuki GSX-R R750R are rare, but haven’t yet grabb bed the money folks in the same w way as the Honda V4 superbikes. Ditto Yamaha’s YZF-750 SP and the Kawasaki ZX-7RR – so you should check them out as possibles.
Our pick is probably Honda’s SP1/2 though. When it was launched in 1999, we couldn’t wait for the riding launch. Surely it would be a week-long shindig at Suzuka, or maybe Phillip Island? A few days at Laguna Seca, perhaps? Or Sepang? In fact, for reasons still unclear, Honda did local launches, so I rode the SP1 in the rain, from Chiswick to West Sussex, in February. Still, turbo-shit launch aside, the SP1 was a corker. Honda took the basic VTR1000 Firestorm motor, added fuel injection and a heap more power, then bolted it into a proper racebike chassis. The thinking g was, of course, to beat the Italians at their r own game: borderline national corrup ption had meant that the WSB bosses (Flamm mini) had let Ducati get away with having a 1000cc capacity limit against 750cc fours forf years. That, plus Foggy, made it inc creasingly difficult for the Japanese foours to win (from 1990-2005 twins won 13 out of 15 titles) – hence the VTR twi in (and Suzuki’s abortive TL1000R R). After Honda threw the kitchen n sink at the project, its SP1 won WSBW under Colin Edwards, in 20000 and was updated to the SP2 for 2001, winning another title wit th Edwards in 2002. By then
though, 1000cc fours were on their way, and the Japanese twins disappeared. Why am I telling you all this? Well, so you know truly what a big deal the SP1 was, and still is to this day. It was a game changer for the Japanese, even if its miniscule fuel tank meant it was impossible to not keep stopping for top-ups. Still, it wascheap for what you got – a brand new Honda with HRC logos and WSBwinning heritage for not much more than a Blade? Yes indeed. The good thing about that is they sold well, so there are plenty of them about for you to buy over a decade later. There not peanuts, but you should be able to bag an SP1 in decent condition for around £6k nowadays.