Why the 750 - 4 didn't handle as well as the Norton.

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Shelby-Right

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Why the 750 - 4 didn't handle as well as the Norton.
 
Well, for a start it isn't a CB750, it's a CB500 - a design Honda bought from Benelli (look at the 750 Sie)
It's the opposite of Laverda stealing and enlarging the Honda Dream for the 650 then 750 twins.

Funny though!!
 
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robs ss said:
Well, for a start it isn't a CB750, it's a CB500 - a design Honda bought from Benelli (look at the 750 Sie)
It's the opposite of Laverda stealing and enlarging the Honda Dream for the 650 then 750 twins.

Funny though!!
Click to expand...
Actually, it's the other way around- the Sei (1972 prototype, production 1974 I think?) came after the Honda 500-4 (1971), and I don't think Benelli actually paid Honds anything other than the complement of copying their design.

Beautiful bike though, but I'm glad I never owned one (the 6 that is....)
 
Was at the Isle of Man a couple of years ago and a guy had a red cafe'd Sei that would show up at the various viewing locations around the circuit. Whenever he did, people quit watching the race to look at the SEI - sounded/looked magnificent. I would have loved to have ridden it but watching him trying to start it/warming it up inclined me to think that LIVING with it on a daily basis would not have been much fun.. ;) Really wanted to buy a CBX when they came out but couldn't afford one; now I can but don't want one!
 
SteveBorland said:
Actually, it's the other way around- the Sei (1972 prototype, production 1974 I think?) came after the Honda 500-4 (1971), and I don't think Benelli actually paid Honds anything other than the complement of copying their design.

Beautiful bike though, but I'm glad I never owned one (the 6 that is....)
Click to expand...
Opps - bloody memory isn't what it used to be! At least Benelli paid for the design, I believe.
Cheers
 
A Honda CB750 might be a good road bike, if you did not know what a good motorcycle feels like. I rode a CB750 when they were first released in Australia. It felt like riding a brick - it was not alive. It was probably designed for people who sit up straight in church on Sundays. A proper motorcycle does not vibrate in the rev range in which it is normally used. Many people do not know the symptoms which indicate the gearing needs to be raised or lowered. It is all mystical bullshit stuff. My brother is a speedway sidecar racing champion. I let him ride my older race bike - he did not know how to get it to turn when in a corner. Riding a solo motorcycle is very different to driving a car.
I know 3 racing car drivers who have hurt themselves while trying to be John Surtees.-
 
acotrel said:
A Honda CB750 might be a good road bike, if you did not know what a good motorcycle feels like. I rode a CB750 when they were first released in Australia. It felt like riding a brick - it was not alive. It was probably designed for people who sit up straight in church on Sundays. A proper motorcycle does not vibrate in the rev range in which it is normally used. Many people do not know the symptoms which indicate the gearing needs to be raised or lowered. It is all mystical bullshit stuff. My brother is a speedway sidecar racing champion. I let him ride my older race bike - he did not know how to get it to turn when in a corner. Riding a solo motorcycle is very different to driving a car.
I know 3 racing car drivers who have hurt themselves while trying to be John Surtees.-
Click to expand...

It had a disc brake Al....💡
 
"Many people do not know the symptoms which indicate the gearing needs to be raised or lowered. It is all mystical bullshit stuff."

Uncle Al..... tell us a story.....
 
MexicoMike said:
Was at the Isle of Man a couple of years ago and a guy had a red cafe'd Sei that would show up at the various viewing locations around the circuit. Whenever he did, people quit watching the race to look at the SEI - sounded/looked magnificent. I would have loved to have ridden it but watching him trying to start it/warming it up inclined me to think that LIVING with it on a daily basis would not have been much fun.. ;) Really wanted to buy a CBX when they came out but couldn't afford one; now I can but don't want one!
Click to expand...
After owning my cbx and having to rebuild those 6 stupid keihins I wish I had a sei- they only had 3 carbies
 
tompkins said:
After owning my cbx and having to rebuild those 6 stupid keihins I wish I had a sei- they only had 3 carbies
Click to expand...
I would offer that the Keihin carburetors were not stupid, rather, whoever in the past chose to leave it sit for years without proper storage was the stupid one. Whether it's two cylinders, 3, 4 or six, multiple carburetors stay in tune no problem, it's when they get clogged up from sitting, and then layman attempt to clean them, is where the trouble begins.

Why the 750 - 4 didn't handle as well as the Norton.
 
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Hi all, obviously anyone reading this is a Norton fan, if not a Norton tragic. It is reasonable that we recognise if not eulogise the virtues of bikes. We recall past glories, ‘As old men, we remember with advantage those feats we once performed on our Nortons’ (apologies to Bill Shakespeare) and like football fans, we defend our chosen brand with tribal ferocity. However, no matter how fervently we try to convince ourselves that our brilliant bikes are ‘alive’, nurtured into life by the artisans of Andover, the sad fact remains that through malice, greed, neglect, shortsightedness, history and world economic circumstances they were absolutely outclassed by Honda and other Japanese manufacturers. I can hear the howls of rage arising from that outrageous statement. How can I say that they were ‘outclassed’, yet even as an avid Norton owner since my youth I stand by that statement. Of course Nortons are superior to Honda Fours in many ways but that fact wouldn’t have worried the captains of Honda one iota. They designed and built a fast, reliable, well equipped large bike at a competitive price. It captured both the imagination and sales choice of thousands of people who never would have dreamed of owning a Norton (or Triumph or BSA). People stopped and ogled a 750/4 who wouldn’t of given a Commando a second glance. Within half a decade Norton was in penury and Honda a household name. The fact that Honda engineers produced a bike that we in hindsight see as somewhat bland, a little indifferent in handling and lacking the finess of a well fettled Norton is irrelevant, they built a bike to be bought by the masses and some years down the track, they bought another. Even the term ‘well fettled’ so often used on Pommie bikes provides us with everything we need to know about their demise. Hondas didn’t need to be fettled, they just worked as designed straight out of the crate. So, what to make of this acerbic diatribe? We love our bikes, we know that they were actually faster and handled better than the big Honda. They possibly even provide more ‘smiles per mile’ with their stonking performance and featherweight handling, they are durable and long lasting in the long term even if unreliable, leaky and frustrating in the short term. They provide fertile ground for us few diehards to eulogise their virtues. We see their lines as minimalist, their engine classes as classic beauty despite the fact that in the early seventies most potential buyers just saw them as yesterday’s technology. But here’s the rub, no matter which way you look at it they are inferior their contemporary Japanese rivals in the way that counts, that is economic success. What we can say about our bikes is this; they are the ultimate expression of an old design, incrementally improved in a thousand ways by experts who had their hands tied. They were under the constraints of a management who refused to allow innovation and generational change, who, by parsimoniously holding the purse strings insisted that what was cutting edge half a century earlier was fit for purpose in the seventies. I could not conclude this rant without mentioning that Britain, whilst wallowing in archaic production methods, staved of a capital after the misfortune of winning two world wars was on the cutting edge of social change. As it had been so often before, it was leading the way on reforming society, providing social services undreamed of in other countries and being the harbinger of the modern western socially responsible society. Unfortunately, on the factory floor these noble causes were reduced to industrial unrest, strikes, distrust and massive inefficiencies. Just some random thoughts. Alan
 
Alan L said:
Hi all, obviously anyone reading this is a Norton fan, if not a Norton tragic. It is reasonable that we recognise if not eulogise the virtues of bikes. We recall past glories, ‘As old men, we remember with advantage those feats we once performed on our Nortons’ (apologies to Bill Shakespeare) and like football fans, we defend our chosen brand with tribal ferocity. However, no matter how fervently we try to convince ourselves that our brilliant bikes are ‘alive’, nurtured into life by the artisans of Andover, the sad fact remains that through malice, greed, neglect, shortsightedness, history and world economic circumstances they were absolutely outclassed by Honda and other Japanese manufacturers. I can hear the howls of rage arising from that outrageous statement. How can I say that they were ‘outclassed’, yet even as an avid Norton owner since my youth I stand by that statement. Of course Nortons are superior to Honda Fours in many ways but that fact wouldn’t have worried the captains of Honda one iota. They designed and built a fast, reliable, well equipped large bike at a competitive price. It captured both the imagination and sales choice of thousands of people who never would have dreamed of owning a Norton (or Triumph or BSA). People stopped and ogled a 750/4 who wouldn’t of given a Commando a second glance. Within half a decade Norton was in penury and Honda a household name. The fact that Honda engineers produced a bike that we in hindsight see as somewhat bland, a little indifferent in handling and lacking the finess of a well fettled Norton is irrelevant, they built a bike to be bought by the masses and some years down the track, they bought another. Even the term ‘well fettled’ so often used on Pommie bikes provides us with everything we need to know about their demise. Hondas didn’t need to be fettled, they just worked as designed straight out of the crate. So, what to make of this acerbic diatribe? We love our bikes, we know that they were actually faster and handled better than the big Honda. They possibly even provide more ‘smiles per mile’ with their stonking performance and featherweight handling, they are durable and long lasting in the long term even if unreliable, leaky and frustrating in the short term. They provide fertile ground for us few diehards to eulogise their virtues. We see their lines as minimalist, their engine classes as classic beauty despite the fact that in the early seventies most potential buyers just saw them as yesterday’s technology. But here’s the rub, no matter which way you look at it they are inferior their contemporary Japanese rivals in the way that counts, that is economic success. What we can say about our bikes is this; they are the ultimate expression of an old design, incrementally improved in a thousand ways by experts who had their hands tied. They were under the constraints of a management who refused to allow innovation and generational change, who, by parsimoniously holding the purse strings insisted that what was cutting edge half a century earlier was fit for purpose in the seventies. I could not conclude this rant without mentioning that Britain, whilst wallowing in archaic production methods, staved of a capital after the misfortune of winning two world wars was on the cutting edge of social change. As it had been so often before, it was leading the way on reforming society, providing social services undreamed of in other countries and being the harbinger of the modern western socially responsible society. Unfortunately, on the factory floor these noble causes were reduced to industrial unrest, strikes, distrust and massive inefficiencies. Just some random thoughts. Alan
Click to expand...
I have always said I believe the Norton commando to be the best bodge up in the history of motorcycles
It used an old engine/gearbox and a hastily designed frame and despite this the sum of its parts added up to a great motorcycle
 
During my 8 years of club short circuit racing with my Norton in 4 stroke classes, I don’t recall ever racing against 750 4 cyl. Jap bikes. In those days it was generally accepted that unless one had all the expensive factory go faster bits they were uncompetitive against Norton 750s. The development of cheap and super powerful 16 valve engines along with better handling chassis changed all that of course.

I once caught up an H1 Mach III in an unlimited heat on my 500 Domi and it took a whole lap to get past and clear off because it was so dangerous trying to pass it. In the corners it was like a sub-atomic particle. I could tell it’s speed but it’s position could be anywhere on the track. On the straights it could out accelerate my Domi.
 

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