MAGIC MUSEUM
CMM gets an invite to The David Silver Honda Collection.
David Silver Spares, the company, has been a long-time supporter of all things Japanese classic, but now the company and the man himself have taken things a stage further. For the last 30 years the firm has been supplying us all with all the spare parts we need to keep our classic Hondas on the road, but that hasn’t been enough. David decided to restore around 50 Honda CB400 Fours ‘…on an industrial scale…’ but that wasn’t enough. When CMM and yours truly first visited him about six years ago, you could see that his growing collection of Hondas was a real passion and he did divulge that he wanted to make something more permanent to showcase his machines. And this is it. Just next door to David Silver Spares is The David Silver Honda Collection, an impressive home to 150 models from Honda, covering the 1950s to the 1990s and we were invited to have a look and watch the grand opening, which was celebrated with specials guests Freddie Spencer and the man who would reveal the plaque itself, classic bike nut and Top Gear’s Captain Slow, James May. With 150 models to look at, you really need to treat yourself to a couple of hours wandering around. The machines in the collection itself have been housed strategically and thoughtfully with the visitor effectively going on a ‘grand tour’ of Honda and its machines from the earliest days through to the 1990s. Honda legend Roger Etcell – a former Honda UK head of motorcycles – helped put together the informative displays, which include audio-visual units running historical videos – around the two-floor museum. You really get a flavour of each decade and the importance of each model as you follow the 100m or so of winding timeline as you travel through Honda’s history on two-wheels.
David said: “It’s nice that the opening of The Collection celebrates 70 years of Honda, as in 1946 Soichiro Honda formed ‘The Honda Technical Research Institute,’ which was a grand name for a collection of sheds and a few employees.” With more than 100 fine machines to choose from, which is David’s favourite? He adds: “I love the early section, which is full of the 1950s Hondas, the Dreams and the Benlys. These are machines rarely seen and there are only a handful left in the world and these are beautifully restored. If the building caught fire I think the Benly J would be the one I would save. It was designed – by hand – by Mr Honda with paper and pencil. The bike itself was a failure, but so many parts of it were innovative. The engine was mounted to swingarm to stop vibrations but when you went over a bump the engine would cut out and on postwar Japanese roads you had a lot of bumps! It also had a monoshock so in some respects it was years before its time. Much of this innovation was used on other bikes so that would be the one I would wheel out should the place catch fire. It’s also proof of Mr Honda’s famous quote that success is 99% failure.” All of the major successes and failures of almost 70 years of Honda are here, from the Super Cub to the Honda Fireblade, including the likes of a sandcast CB750, an original Gold Wing and the mighty CBX1000Z. So, if you want to visit perhaps the finest collection of Honda motorcycles outside of the Honda Collection Hall in Japan, head to Suffolk – you will not be disappointed.
Who is David Silver?
David Silver has lived and breathed bikes, most notably Hondas, for many years. Being relatively handy with the spanners himself, David initially wanted to make a living resurrecting and restoring old bikes. He said: “I wanted to buy up old wrecks and do them up for a profit. I bought a 550 K3, which was missing third gear, so then I had to become extra handy with the spanners! A friend then explained to me that when I divided the hours I was spending rebuilding the bike I would probably be making about 50p and that if I really wanted the extra income I should go work in a bar.” But his work on that old 550 did switch on a light bulb over his head. He knew that getting parts for bikes was hit-and-miss. He also knew that (from his time in the trade working for Sondel Sport on Highgate Corner) that some dealers or distributors were sitting on a lot of unsold stock of such parts. This was the early to mid-1980s, when many a dealer would simply dump old stock of spare parts into a skip rather than keep hold of them. Storeroom and warehouse space was at a premium back in the days of big new bike sales of the Eighties. David explained: “Today Honda sells parts dire to the dealers, but in those days in the mid-198 Honda had umpteen parts distributors who the to the dealers. I came across one in London Parts of Lewisham, who were sitting on a lo unsold stock: all going cheap. So, on the moment I went and filled the car up wit