Having spent some time on the Honda CBR600RR this month, it still astounds me that we won’t see it being sold beyond this year. With the last bikes already built and on the boat to Blighty, Honda has hammered home the last nail in the coffin to lay to rest the most successful sportsbike ever.
All good things needn’t come to an end, decisions conspire to make a bike’s demise an inevitability, and Honda’s lack of investment in the bike over the last ten years has consigned the CBR to history. The economics of supersport bike building aren’t pretty, as most manufacturers like telling us. They cost almost the same amount to develop as a big bore bike, but have lower price tags making their position perilous at the best of times. Add recessions, commodity price rises and the advent of Euro4 legislation and you’ve got a perfect storm – cue the funeral procession. If I was in charge at Honda looking at a spreadsheet of sales, I’d probably do the same… Actually, noI wouldn’t. I’d build a shit-kicking 120bhp CBR600RR with proper suspension, electronics, the works…