Honda CB1100 with Pipemasters 4 into 4 Polished Stainless SteelExhaust

[baxtercat_imp]

Baz, no shooting from me, but I think your observations raise interesting questions about the bike's esthetics. Seems to me there are at least two main factors to this: 1. what Honda's designers were attempting to do, and how well they accomplished it and 2. where our ideas of "right" come from. Most of us of a certain age I think had certain elements of the older bikes, and CBs specifically, "imprinted" onto our brains at an early age, such that our youthful bike lust combined with the look of the object of our lust to leave us with a permanent sense of "that's what a bike should look like." I was imprinted with the K look, people younger than me with the F or 80s or 90s designs. This is not to say that we can't appreciate older or newer designs, just that a certain look becomes a yardstick of evaluation for us. If you care about looks.

What about Honda and the CB11? Clearly they could have produced a more authentically retro bike, even something like a reproduction bike, if they chose to and they thought there was a market for it. The CB4 prototype came much closer in its details: solid rotors, gaitors, the breadloaf seat, matching paint on headlight shell and fork ears, the rounded tank, fender stays, 4 into 4 and even the header clamps with cooling fins all contribute to a more late 60s feel. Leaving these things off the CB11 and including other styling cues contributes to the more generalized, less period specific CB look we got. There are other, more historically ambiguous cues, like black paint on some of the engines or the filler cap or cast vs spoked wheels, and then outright gestures towards the contemporary, like the brushed aluminum chain guard or side covers or LCD display. The fact that each newer version of the CB11 plays around with adding and subtracting cues (tank shape, what parts are chrome, reservoir shocks etc) suggests the designers are not just freshening things up, but still seeking a new balance between retro and not-too-specific retro/contemporary, with perhaps different generational buyers being emphasized with the different iterations (and, more starkly, the decision to make an EX and RS version or all black version). Triumph and Kawasaki and anyone else making a "retro" bike is playing the same game, and it's interesting to see which details and combination of details each believes will deliver for their intended audience. But you are right to note that it is very fine details, like the precise bend of the original 4 into 4 or the finish of an aluminum engine case, that makes all the difference to a buyer of a certain age.