04-05-2015, 06:18 AM
Everyone has their individual issues with any given product — nothing is perfect. In the case of the CB1100, my guess that the single biggest hindrance to Honda selling larger quantities of the bike has little to do with the looks or the horsepower (or the speed limiter for that matter) but rather the pricing.
People are willing to overlook a lot of what they perceive as shortcomings with a product if they are under the perception that they got the "upper hand". Not only at the bargaining table but in comparison to the next guy. Such scrutiny certainly applies to motorcycles. If a product falls within the amount a person has budgeted for a purchase, then it has a chance of being sold. The chances increase as the price drops. But how much tweaking can a manufacturer do to a product before it loses its base appeal?
Honda could have cut corners here or there and made the CB1100 available for less. But from all of the information that Honda has published about the creation of the CB1100, that was not their goal. I also highly doubt that a bike resulting from such priorities would have had nearly as much appeal to me as the bike Honda ended up actually producing. When it comes to the CB1100, I for one am glad that Honda went about things the way they did.
People are willing to overlook a lot of what they perceive as shortcomings with a product if they are under the perception that they got the "upper hand". Not only at the bargaining table but in comparison to the next guy. Such scrutiny certainly applies to motorcycles. If a product falls within the amount a person has budgeted for a purchase, then it has a chance of being sold. The chances increase as the price drops. But how much tweaking can a manufacturer do to a product before it loses its base appeal?
Honda could have cut corners here or there and made the CB1100 available for less. But from all of the information that Honda has published about the creation of the CB1100, that was not their goal. I also highly doubt that a bike resulting from such priorities would have had nearly as much appeal to me as the bike Honda ended up actually producing. When it comes to the CB1100, I for one am glad that Honda went about things the way they did.