Mike Hailwood and his role in the downfall of the NR500

Most of us know the oval-pistoned Honda NR500 GP bike of the late 1970s and early 1980s was an abject failure. But why did Honda try to build it when two-strokes had such a huge advantage? TT and GP winner Mick Grant was the NR’S development rider: ‘The way the Japanese factories work is that if you’re a good engineer, you go up the pecking order and the guys at the top at Honda back then were the guys who’d built Hailwood’s six [in 1966 he won 10 GPS on the 250cc marvel]. ‘They really didn’t know how good the two-strokes were and told the poor guys on the shop floor, “you’ve got three years to build a four-stroke world championship winner,” and instead of the shop floor guys saying, “don’t be an idiot, that’s impossible,” they had a go at it. But it was never going to happen. Never.’