Very Flippin’ Reliable...

A road bike with a motor partially based on that of the RC45 and for two grand or under: bargain!

Yup, I heard back in early 1997 in the race paddock where I then worked that the tooling for the V4 homologation racer, the RC45, was being changed. What happened was that the dye made for the RC45’s crankcases was adapted to produce a ‘different’ road bike. This pointed towards two things: a new homologated race machine from HRC as they couldn’t make any more RC45s. That bike became the V-twin SP1 and a new V4 road bike which pointed p to a successor for the VFR750…

When finally unveiled, it was clear that the t RC45 had basically lent its guts to the 1998 1 VFR800Fi-W. A 2mm longer stroke gave g 781cc, while the fuel injection system was also derived from the RC45’s. The race pedigree continued as the bike’s design team leader was Satoru Horiike. Horiikesan was in charge of building race bikes including the NS500 triple, all the NSR500s from 1984-1987, the oval-pistoned NR500 (and later NR750 road bike), as well as the RC45 R and 1999 CBR600 F-X road bikes.

At launch many VFR fans (including me) preferred the more characterful 750 over the 800, but many (including me) are revising this view today as the bike – while feeling bulkier – is better all-round. Handling is there, practicality is there and you’ve got around 100 ‘torquey’ bhp at the rear wheel. What more do you need? And this amazing, do-it-all bike can still be had for as low as £1500 if you look really hard. Good ones start around £2500…