Honda to make an RC213V for the road

File this one under very exciting:

Honda's RC213V for the road

Many Honda fans have long clamoured for a V4 for the road. The exhaust note is exhilarating and the power is lovely, but the flaghsip Honda 1000cc bike has been the Fireblade since it's inception over 20 years ago now. The RC30 and RC45 came close, offering a V4 750CC road machine, but they were really just created to homologate the bike for superbike racing. As such, they're reasonably rare.

The next hope was the project that eventually became the VFR1200. it started out teased at various bike shows as this concept:

Clearly, it was a concept only, but the bike teased beautiful lines and the promise of something highly exotic.

What we eventually got was this:

As you can see, there are similarities, many similarities, but it lost something in translation. It also didn't help that it was a touring bike and while it has lots of power, it's overly engaging to ride.

So, why are we getting excited again? Firstly, the 213V is their GP bike - Think of this as Honda's desmosedici. It's also a V5. Now, I've no real clue what that would mean in terms of rideability or power delivery, but you only have to look at the Honda's on he back straight of any decent race track to see them pulling away from everyone else to know that it would mean power. Built right, you could easily see this being the most powerful bike out there.

Secondly, it's a Honda - they tend to build these things right and well.

Thirdly, this has been teased ever since the move to four strokes in GP.

Once thing I think we can safely predict: Expect a hefty price tag. The Desmo wasn't cheap at $80k+. I doubt this would be any cheaper.