The Kneeslider

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Honda Mugen MRV1000

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Honda Mugen MRV1000
Honda Mugen MRV1000

At this year’s Isle of Man TT, there was a classic parade with many old machines not seen in a long time, among those participating was this odd motorcycle, a Honda Mugen MRV1000. A quick look shows a strong British influence with an engine style reminiscent of an old Vincent, but what the heck is a Mugen MRV1000?

Honda Mugen MRV1000 engine
Honda Mugen MRV1000 engine

From the little information available, it seems Hirotoshi Honda, son of Honda founder, Soichiro Honda, founded a company by the name of Mugen in 1973. The company built Honda based racing engines and has evidently been pretty successful, but Hirotoshi is a Brit bike enthusiast and wanted to build something along the lines of a Vincent.

Honda Mugen MRV1000
Honda Mugen MRV1000

The MRV1000 was an attempt to create a limited production street bike with a 4 valve, twin carb, 1000cc V-Twin. After they built it they realized it would cost far too much to be marketable and this prototype is the one and only of its kind.

Honda Mugen MRV1000 engine
Honda Mugen MRV1000 engine

The engine definitely has the look of a Vincent, though I think the originals had slightly better lines. It would have been interesting if Honda would have produced the MRV1000. They can build interesting machines with British styling cues, the GB500 for instance, but even there, it never sold well and now is recognized in hindsight as having been quite nice with collectors always on the lookout for low mileage examples. With that history, it’s likely this one wouldn’t have sold well, either, followed after a time when everyone would be scrambling to buy one. Go figure. Anyway, it’s something I had never heard of until I ran across a short piece in Classic Bike magazine. Another one that might have been.

Link: Club Honda Classic

Honda Mugen MRV1000 rear wheel detail
Honda Mugen MRV1000 rear wheel detail

Comments

  1. Beautiful machine! I can see how it would be prohibitively expensive to build and market; just look at that gorgeous rear brake. The bike is covered with fine details like that, every one of which would drive the costs up. Too bad it never made production — it’s a sweet machine, and I’m sure its performance would be stirring.

  3. Beautiful Bike!

    Would much rather see Honda build something along these lines instead of the new Shadow RS.

  4. “Evidently been pretty successful”?
    Mugen got successful enough to compete against the Old Man’s company in F1. For a while, the Mugen was the better engine. Mugen also had their own V8 used in lower classes of racing.
    Then for a bit, the “Factory” F1 support was From Mugen and not from HRC.

    I like the looks of this bike, but can tell it would have been very pricey to make.
    I really wish they had found a way to make it at a better price point. I loved my 750 Shadow engine until it stopped shifting (a rare poor design from the Winged Ones), and wished it was in a standard frame. An aircooled V Twin Street Tracker or Cafe in Honda flavor please.

  5. Interesting, but that engine is not attractive (it might not be as ugly if it was not copying some of the Vincent).
    I would like to see a bench-seat v-twin (Yamaha Sakura)

  6. If you take this as a “Concept” type build and then tone it back to meet some sort of production price point, most of the look could probably be maintained for appeal to the masses. Yes, the Magnesium hubs and braided lines would probably go, but the motor, aluminum rims and styling would be there and thats what most people would be attracted to. Then the garage tinkerer could add all the expensive upgrades from the Honda or Mugen catalog that would/could accompany the bike’s release to market.

    Looks pretty darn interesting to me! Sign me up!

  7. I agree it’s got many more things right then wrong. For my taste it’s got great classic lines, an engine with lots of fiddle bits to make the eye pause and the mind race. lots of uniqueness with in classic styling cues

  9. Sure, something came of it – called the VT500 Ascot. That is what happens to something like this after everyone else in the room gets their hands on it. This can easily be copied with any of the run-of-the-mill cruiser engines available.

    The straight-laced spokes scare me a little with a 1000cc motor…

    -todd

  12. Surprised that anyone connected with bikes hasn’t heard of Mugen. Anyway, that’s a neat looking bike.

  13. Can anyone else see striking similarities with the new classic fours released by Honda? The tank shape, seat, read fender among other things. This thing is beautiful, even though the engine is not perfect.

  14. Todd, The Virago bike is super cool and I would say one of the more impressive bikes I’ve seen here (except for ther 16″ wheel). The Sportster is more of the “Easily Copied” variety with a couple of visual add-ons to a stock bike. The Mugen bike is world’s beyond these two examples and as I said looks like a factory special. Not a make over by any stretch.

    If you squint your eyes, remove the radiator, add trick hubs, re-case the motor, make a new tank, seat, rims, forks shock lay-out, new controls, bars and exhaust fitted in a new chassis, I guess you could make a Shadow RS look just like this fairly easily. 🙂

  15. Quite a beautiful bike. The engine’s not quite as pretty as a Vincient’s, but it’s close. To my eye there’s something wrong with the wheel lacing though. The spokes are to close to being purely radial. How would they transmit any torque? Also, although that big front drum brake looks neat, the spokes are so short they’d all be loose when you got the brake hot.

  17. Mugen built the first water-cooled kits for Honda CR125s, and built Jonny O’Mara’s GP winning bike.

  19. Bill, why would these spokes be any more likely to loosen up than the spokes would with a cross 2/3 pattern. I don’t think I ever heard of drum brake wheels of any vintage getting wobbly after getting hot.

    Bicycles have almost all gone to “Radial” patterns and in fact at the same time they’ve also eliminated a bunch of spokes. 24 spoke wheels are used in extreme road situations and you would not believe the abuse they can take. Motorcycles wheels with 8 gauge x 40 spokes used to be the norm and now a CRF450 has 9 gauge(smaller) and 32 spoke rear wheels. I think even though we are not used to seeing them on motorcycles, radial lace ups are common and perhaps Mugen was way ahead of his time. That said, this isn’t a production bike and perhaps these wheels wouldn’t have made it that far anyway.

  20. Lots of bicycles use spoke counts as low as 16 and get reasonable life, meaning a racing season. On the other hand, road bikes all use rim brakes–the spokes don’t see any torque. The drive side of every rear wheel, though, has crossed spokes. Otherwise the drive torque would either rip the heads off or break the rim. Torque and radial spokes don’t mix.

    Aside from that minor engineering problem, though, it’s a very pretty bike.

  21. Remember the old Britbike racing drum brakes? “So big you needed a brake to stop the brake”. The spokes were about 4″ long and there never were any problems with looseness or wobbling.
    I agree the radial spokes are for appearance and a production machine would have proper crossed spokes. It’s all moot anyway. This one never saw the factory floor — a shame.

  22. The radial spoke pattern on the rear wheel is doomed. Why did they . do this? Radial spoking on bicycles only work on the front wheels. And, then, they are prone to detensioning, constantly. I build bicycle wheels for a living. The slightest trauma causes instant loss of tension. They are for racers only. The rear should be 2 or 3 cross, if possible. mikey

  23. Before I scrolled through all the pictures, I thought I was looking at a new ‘limited edition’ bike. Stunning. Now If only someone would produce it. Mule probably has the best suggestion about how it could be mass produced. Just wish there was a way to build it, ‘as pictured’, but with braking force equal to todays bikes.

  24. Radial spokes – one of the few things that “looks right – is wrong”. Too bad. Beautiful machine.

  25. A few nit picking details aside, I love this look. This is everything a motorcycle should be (IMO). Japan Inc needs to concentrate efforts on beautiful standards like this and a little less on the Anime inspired abortions. No wonder sales from the land of the rising son are tanking and Suzuki is struggling mightily in the mature markets.

    Funny that technology may be the Achilles heal of the Big 4. So much advancement that they lost the market with overkill and steady price increases. Not everyone wants the latest sport bike advancements. To me they all look the same, ugly. The differences between them is irrelevant as well as I cant come anywhere near expoiting how good they are.

    Japan took over the market with bikes like this (in looks) and then abandoned it. Hopefully we will see a resurgence of the classic, simple, and fun, like this, the Bonneville, Sportster, and V7.

  26. This is one fine looking machine, with or without any reference to Vincent. A similar treatment of a Sportster could be nice too, though I admit it would likely be a slow seller.

  27. This is a great looking bike, but the oil tank in front of the engine looks downright ugly!

    • Didn’t notice the OIL tank until you mentioned it. I think its great there…puts weight nice and low and in the center too

  28. Reminds me of the new-ish honda cb1100f as much as the vincent.

    Those huge engine casings and the oil tank uglify things, in my opinion. Still, I wouldn’t throw it out of bed for eating crackers.

  29. My first thought was “wow, a Honda done like a Ducati GT1000”. The left side view is gorgeous, the right side of the engine is ugly. The basic styling is right on, build it with the SuperHawk engine and disc brakes, use spoked wheels or a simply styled cast wheel (like the old Lesters) and it would have to be my next bike. I agree with Eaton’s comments on the current crop of bikes, most leave me cold.

  30. I like the straight laced wheels, looks great. They can’t be that bad, all the Homies with the Dayton wire wheels seem to run fine on the Low riders. Yes, I know they have more spokes but then the cars they drive are 2 tonnes plus and they bounce them!

  33. A very interesting bike. I do loke the stance of it.

    As to a Shadow RS being made to look a lot like it, I do agree. Turning a cruiser into a standard is not as difficult of a stretch as some may think. The new RS has a true standard stance and feel to it. The XR1200 Sportster is one I would NEVER consider calling a cruiser. Heck, it would be not to difficult to make a 98 Shadow ACE into something that comes close to being a standard. Redo the suspension, firm up the brakes, different handlebars, swap the light, and change fenders and add a custom exhaust, and you would not recognize it as a VT750CD2. The one big clue would be looking at the engine, and thats if you know Honda bikes well.

    The lines deviding what type of bike this one is and that one is is really becomming blurry in some aspects. And it is usually companies such a Mugan that are at the forefront of redefining our conceptions.

  34. Another beautiful bike we will not see for sale Stateside,because as we know every American rider wants a Harley or a Harley clone!

  35. Just found this and love it! I DO wish Honda would build this instead of the endless supply of HD clones. That motor is incredible looking. I would bet that those vertical tubes are likely shafts that drive overhead cams?

  36. very nice bike .tastefull.you shouldnt say anything negative about this bike unless you think you can build better.tough and tasty. bald growl