VF1000R "Rare Color Scheme"

Neat looking bike, but I rather doubt the sellers claim of it being a "rare factory color scheme"

Honda : Interceptor:eBay Motors (item 250492838464 end time Sep-10-09 11:41:48 PDT)


Any thoughts?

-Paul

 

Yes, its so rare, that even the factory doesn't even know about it. I cannot understand why people paint their bikes in different colours. One of the appeals of the VF1000R is it's striking colour scheme. As far as I know, the bike was never destined for the Japanese market , as they have (had?) engine capacity limits. 1000 cc was way too big for the home Japanese market. In fact, the only way a Japanese rider could get a large capacity bike, was to import the bike back into Japan.

 

If this bike came from Japan, why would the main unit of measure on the speedo be mph?

 

Mmm..I didn't look at the photos. Yes, the speedo is calibrated imperial / metric, just like the USA bikes. That bike sure is rough, once you look at the thumbnail photos. Its probably been down the road, so, someone decided to re-paint it differently. And its been down the road after the paint job. That seat is ugly and damaged too.

 

This bike was sold a year or two ago on Craigslist, then about 6 months or so ago, the original owner posted an ad with a picture looking to buy it back. As far as I know, he never got it back. He was the one who had the paint done. Honda NEVER offered this paint scheme anywhere. It is a regular US version VF1000R from 1985 with a custom paintjob.

By the way, there were many VF1000R`s sold in Japan, starting with the VF1000RE in 1984.

 

Tom...Interesting comments on the eBay bike .

Re VF1000R's in Japan : .Back in those days, no large capacity bikes were able to be bought direct in Japan. They were all imported back from other countries. I lived in Japan from 1993 to 1997 ( Nagoya and Tokyo ). No run of the mill bike shops had big bikes. In Tokyo, all the interesting bike shops were in Euno district..

All the best from " Down Under".....Peter

 

Hi Peter,

Maybe you can shed some light on all the VF1000R`s, GSX1100`s, GPZ turbo`s/900`s, CB1100R`s, etc that are in Japan? Surely they cannot all be imports? There is even a club for VF1000R`s and F`s that celebrated the 25th anniversary a few years ago. I know there were tiered license/taxes relating to bike capacity in the 80`s, and it was easier/less expensive to own a small bike, but you were there in the 90`s?

 

Tom,
I will talk to a friend of mine who was editor of an Australian motor cycle magazine in the 1980's and 1990's, and he will be able to enlighten us. He used to go to Japan every year as well. He will know the complete history of large capacity bikes in Japan.

I first went to Japan in 1988 for a conference for work, then, in 1990, I went to SUZUKA for the bike Grand Prix ( 500 cc, 250cc and 125cc) , and also in July 1990 for the SUZUKA 8 HOUR RACE...That was when all the Grand Prix riders raced there...Gardner, Doohan, Lawson, etc. In fact, I still feel that the RVF750 HONDAs of that era were the best bikes that HONDA ever produced. ( not for the road). They looked and sounded great.

I am not impressed with the current crop of sports bikes, and, if we painted them all one colour, and took the stickers off, we could not tell them apart.

At that particular race meeting, HONDA released the first of the NR750 road bikes . Thats the oval pistoned bike . It was used at SUZUKA as a travelling marshalls bike. I still have magazines with the first photos. Recently, I found a Japanese sales brochure on the bike, hidden in my numerous book collection.

I moved to Japan in 1993 to Nagoya and was based there for 10 months,before my firm moved me to Tokyo. However, I travelled extensively there for work, and have been as far south as Hakata, and as far north as Sapporo. I fact, most Japanese reckon I have seen more of Japan than they could. Thats because the firm was covering my travelling costs Expensive there .

Give me a few days to talk to my mate, as he is now in New Zealand, and I will get back to you.

All the best from Australia......Peter

 

It always amazes me the things people know! Great info here!!

-Paul

 

Thanks Peter,

I`d like to ad the info to my brain. I remember seeing the pics of the RVF and the Marshal`s NR bikes in the mags at the time. I had a 1983 V45 Interceptor new. Seeing those pictures of those bikes really cemented the V4 in my mind.

As far as the ebay R goes, I had emailed the seller regarding the bike being a normal US R, he replied thanks but he is going by what Honda told him after running the serial number. I have replied that I would like to know if the 9th VIN digit is an X or is it a number as I know there is a website/or a printout I have that lists serial number ranges for different countries...I just need to find it to know for sure.

EDIT: I found my printout from a website years ago. His bike is a 1985 model as he states, so, the VIN looks at this point that it is either an American model or a Canadian model for 1985 due to the "0" in the 8th place in the VIN. With the info I have, the only countries that used a number in that spot of the VIN are America (0), America California (1), and Canada (0).

The VIN also shows the FM after the initial letters and the other countries do not seem to have used the letter code in the VIN. M indicates the Hamamatsu factory in Japan. At least according to this list. My list shows only the three(America, America California, Canada) as having the letters here. The F (10th character) signifies 1985, G is 1986, E would be 1984 but we never got the 1984 R`s here and the countries that did do not have those letters on this list. We did get the 1984 VF1000F here and I looked at my F, (as I have looked at my R`s), and it follows the same American VIN format: JH2SC1507 EM****** with the "E" signifying 1984.

Peter, you have a 1984 VF1000RE, can you verify?

 

Tom and Paul,
I have e-mailed my mate in New Zealand, and am waiting for him to confirm things. Back when I was based in Japan ( as a cutting tool engineer), I used to go to SUZUKA for motor sport photography. I used to supply photos to the Australian magazine ( REVS). I covered the 1990, 1994 and 1997 SUZUKA 8 HOUR races. They were BIG ..Really BIG in those days.. Crowds of 160,000 people there. And, it was so hot. First time fo me was 1990, and I flew up from Australian winter (not that cold) to Japanese summer... 36C or more and the humidity..A killer. I would drink about 10 cans of POCARI SWEAT ( like GATORADE ) a day, and would go for a leak once a day..The rest was just sweated out of me...

I still have REVS here with the SUZUKA 1990 8 HOUR Photos . Recently, I found a nice Japanese bochure in my apartment on the NR750. Its about 20 pages in the usual Japanese high quality printing. A Japanese company that I did some photos for, also produced a beautiful book on the NR750.
At Suzuka, HONDA used to have a museum there,and they had a VF1000R as well. It didnt look out of place at all. The HONDA museum is now at MOTEGI , but, I have never been to that circuit.

Also have a brochure on the RC45. I was thinking about getting one of those, but, unfortunately, my firm decded to ship me back to Australia. Could not even consider them once I was back in OZ. My Japanese salary at the time was good!!

Will get back to you soon.........Peter G

 

I can tell you that some bike models are not sold here and they have to be export models, like my VStrom. It was for the Italian market but I bought it here at a premium price.

My 1990 VFR750F is a Japan market bike. It has the 180 km/hr limiter etc.

Many people who want the fastest bikes buy an export model because it's not limited. They are still limited if you buy a Japan model. Yes some can be delimited but at some cost not cheap.

By law Japanese makers can now sell Japan models without limiters but they don't for some reason.

I'm not sure back in 1985 if they sold both a Japan model and export models of the VF1000s. Very likely they were all export models.

However, these bikes were less sophisticated than today's bikes so it might have been an easier matter derestricting them. Unless there was a cheap and easy way, nobody would have bought that bike, they'd have paid more for an export model.

 

Tom,
I have a 1984 VR1000RE...Brand new in June 4th., 1984. Its now got a whole 18,000 KM on it, as I haven't ridden it since 1990..A long story...Got some vibration at 5,000RPM, and, HONDA did not want to know about it.

Compression was perfect, and I even dropped the sump off a couple of times, and nothing in there that should not be in there....no metal etc.

I bought it down to Melbourne in January ,2003.( I am originally from Brisbane, Queensland) with the idea of a re-build that would take 6 months. Well, from 2002 to February, 2009, I was spending most of my time travelling in Asia as a Project Tooling Engineer..Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Germany, New Zealand.
So, when I would come back to OZ, I wold be so tired that I could not be bothered to work on the bike.

I learned a few things though..Never park a bike with fuel in the tank... The bike now has a NEW 1985 fuel tank that I got off eBay a few years ago..Still no fuel in the tank !! Some near new mufflers off eBay, and off course, I have completely re-built the brakes with new seals, pistons, pads etc. Have new RK GOLD CHain, new front and rear sprockets, have a carby kit as well that I got off eBay ( all new jets , needle and seats ..you name it ). Of course, the bike has braided lines on it, as I would take the standard lines off as soon as I got the bike. Have also purchased a TOP END OIL KIT too.

So, when it finally does get going, it will be nice..Oh yes, just got some MICHELIN TYRES for it too... 120/80 x 16 MACADAM 100X front , and a PILOT ROAD 2 150/ 70 x 17 for the rear.

All the best 4 now..........Peter

 

Here is the website where I printed the list in 2007:

VF1000R-SPEC

And the same page run through OCN J-server translation:

http://translate.ocn.ne.jp/LUCOCN/c3/location.cgi?URL=/LUCOCN/c3/hf.cgi%3fSURL%3dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.iris.dti.ne.jp%252F%257Enyorio%252Fvf%252Fvfspec.html%26XTYPE%3d1%26SEARCH%3dT%26SLANG%3dja%26TLANG%3den&CHECK2=hm

 

Tom, Good Morning.

Here is the reply that I received from my mate who was editor of REVS in the 1980's and early 1990's.:

There may have been some restricted large capacity bikes over 750cc (bhp restriction) released in
Japan in the 1970s and '80s but my understanding the top limit was 750cc and even they were restricted
in power output.

Later, the Japanese manufacturers restricted their 750s with speed limiters so they would not go any faster than 180 km/h.

I know a bloke who bought a Jap spec (used import) FZR750SP because it had the high spec. suspension, flat slide carbs
etc and thought he had himself a bargain (it was cheaper than a NZ spec stock FZR750). Then he found out about the speed restrictor on it. Quite expensive to by-pass too...

Regarding the over 750cc bikes, there were 1100 Katanas turning up in Australia (as just one example) that were NEVER
uncrated. They were simply freighted back to Japan as re-imports (or whatever construct the Japs used to get around
the 750cc restriction (which I think may also have been an agreement among the manufactureres rather than an actual law.

Action Suzuki sent stacks of bikes back to Japan that way, then later on bought up used 1100 Katanas cheap when the glosss went off them, and sent them back to Japan too.

Eddie Lawson Replicas were a popular re-import, which was great for the sharp retailers as at one stage you could buy ELRs used cheaper in Australia than the standard Z1000J... Go figure.

So over time there would have been thousands of bikes re-imported to Japan from the USA and Australia...

All the best.....Peter

 

Thanks Peter, very informative.
Interesting that so many went right back to Japan. Seems they were available, but not originally intended for that market.
Be nice to have a ELR right now.

 

I wish that I was a good enough salesman to convince people that a crash and repainted bike is a "rare factory color". But alas, I don't think that I could look myself in the mirror after that. Or it could be that he was the one suckered by that line and now he actually believes it!

 

Rare color VF1000R

I am the original owner of the rare color scheme VFR! It is a custom paint job. No rare paint from the factory. Just somthing I put together in the garage. If anyone knows where this bike went. I am still looking for it!! My email is humpty72@gmail.com Thanks

 

Awesome! It's always nice to hear about a previous owner looking to get their bike back. I'd suggest keeping your eye on the Indy Craigslist because chances are it will turn up on there again.

 

Thanks, I will keep my eye out on there