A Honda VFR with a MotoGP-inspired five-cylinder, 1,000 cc motor, single-side swingarm with shaft drive, push-button gear changer, and two models: street-sport, and touring.
That’s what Motorcycle News is suggesting we’ll see in 2009, and they’ve even got world exclusive pictures to prove it.
But wait, there’s more … er, less.
MCN readers are not so sure this story is real, and one of them claims to be "getting increasingly hacked off" with the magazine’s "world exclusive photos" of new bikes that turn out to be computer-made images.
A number of readers have commented that the VFR photo looks suspiciously like something cobbled together from bits of other sport bikes, and they’re not pleased about MCN’s claims. "When you KNOW something definative (sic) [and MCN will certainly NOT be the exclusive first to know] then tell us," one reader suggests.
MCN replies that their photo is based on a Honda patent drawing and "other information that we have had from factory insiders." They didn’t "just make it up," they say.
Made up or not, the photo is a tad unreal, but the bike? Wait and see, and hope for the best.
I stand corrected on that last thread, That piping is needed. The rear 2 pipes make a crazy loop around the engine. MCN has a pipe map, seems the flow is down not up as I thought.
Rob
I have no doubt that the bike is for real, with the single sided swing-arm on Europe’s cb1000 seems possible and hopefully for the VFR loyal, realistic. But this pick is not real, it can’t be unless the bike has 2 exhaust systems. Note the vertical piping that seems to go no-where. One muffler would be enough or if there were a pair they would/should be symm.
Rob
02 VFR 175,562 kms
07 VFR 21,332 kms
I’ve been reading MCN whenever I get the chance since 1972. I think they have a lot more of their spy shots turn into real bikes than not. I scoffed at the KTM street models and the Suzuki behemoth thing, and they came to the market looking very much like the ‘mockups’. I can’t vouch for their connections to the factories, but they seem to out there testing new models months before any of the other NA rags are invited (or reported). You dare to complain about a weekly motorcycle paper that has more pages than a Toronto newspaper and rarely has any pics of leather chaps and bandanas ??
You gotta admit though, that is one good looking mock-up.
This is typical of the standard of (purported) journalism that we in the Uk have to accept from our motorcycling weekly. Over the last 2-3 years we have seen more “spy-shots” and “exclusive” photographs than models actually produced. MCN have no more access to the manufacurers than any other publication, they just believe they are the chosen ones and when news is slow ………. they make it up! They live and breathe sensationalism. I would love for them to have their press accreditaion removed as they are a disgrace to the profession.