From our Old Bike Archives – Issue 85 – first published in 2020.
Story: Derek Pickard
The bike boom of 50 years ago saw the Japanese in a position to take full advantage. But despite their many winners they had their share of problems. Derek Pickard looks back at the ones that got away – the sales failures.
The 1970s were a truly golden era in motorcycles. The buying market had the money and the Japanese makers’ had an eager spirit to try any type of new products. The four factories had their own huge domestic market as the base and the USA was taking just about anything shipped out of Tokyo. Everything was on the agenda: on-road, off-road, singles, triples, fours, two strokes and even rotaries. With the Japanese investment in Research & Development matched by immaculate production technologies, a huge list of ranges expanded rapidly.
And as the businesses boomed, most of the 1970s had just about gone before the brakes on the few failed models began to be applied. The previously perfect record of innovative Jap bikes which always went from big to bigger, began to hit a wall for some examples. Suddenly a few new bikes were not meeting sales expectation and expensive production lines were closed. Sure, most of their ranges were singing along in a booming consumer world, but for the first time individual mistakes had to be admitted. The failures went on into the 1980s as competition forced all four factories to keep trying new layouts – and they all incurred inevitable flops.
This line-up is not a judge of technologies, more a list on where the otherwise successful factories lost money by occasionally getting it wrong. Remember, the manufacturing industry is all about volume and to retrieve huge investment costs in R&D and new production lines, a new model must sell well over a period of time, like two or three years.
Following is a list of makers sales failures (in alphabetical order):
HONDA
While individual flops cost the world’s biggest bike maker heaps, looked at as a total picture the cost was easily absorbed. Honda’s really big earner during the 1970s along with its bikes was the incredibly big selling Civic car. Of all the Japanese bike makers, this company was a huge success story so failures were taken in its stride.
CB750A (auto): The plot was obvious: take the proven and acceptable CB750 and fit it with an automatic transmission. (Honda had been developing its own version of fluid flywheel torque converters for their Honda cars so began to fit them to motorcycles.) Despite the high profile launch in the world’s biggest market of automatic cars, hardly anyone into bikes was buying. Very soon, the line fell silent. Clearly, 1970s bike buyers preferred clicking through the gears.CB400A (auto): The Honda executives were very aware of the fact that the CB350 twin had been a top USA seller during the early 1970s and they wanted a middleweight that could retake such a profitable position. They figured their auto technology in simpler form put into the late 1970s 400 twins had to be a winner. Despite mild sales numbers and a later bigger 450, total sales remained low and Honda gave up on auto motorcycles for many years.CBX1000: I’ll never forget attending the lavish USA launch of this glamorous six in 1978 and listening to the Honda executives telling us how confident they were that Honda’s CBX1000 was going to do to the market in 1979 what the CB750 had done in 1969 – and everyone believed it. They even bragged about their huge new production line in Japan. Despite stunning looks and specification, sales were slower than hoped. Within no time, the model was upgraded to the Pro-link faired tourer which sold even less before Honda ended this layout.XLV750: A nicely styled and well spec’d big trail bike that was in every way ahead of its time. It was one of the first in the soon-to-emerge category of an adventure machine. Although the factory had big hopes for this shaft drive off-roader, very few sold. Probably too much too soon.FT500: Honda released this road version of their trail bike following the success of the Yamaha SR500. Despite having a better electric-start engine, errors in styling saw the ugly duckling make only mild sales. Whereas the SR500 went onto the very good SRX600, this FT went nowhere.CB500T: Talk about milking a model for too long. After the old 450 twin had been around for a decade, Honda upgraded the engine into a 500 and painted the bike yuck brown. Production ended after the first brief run.
KAWASAKI
If ever a motorcycle maker had a huge parent company to bail out any losses, then this is such an example. Kawasaki Heavy Industries’ deep pockets were always there to ensure its bike maker would continue to grow.
KZ750 twin: The Japanese fascination with a traditional 650/750 twin layout to take over where the Brits had left off, saw all the Nipponese factories come up with their version. But this one was too big, too long, too heavy and simply could not compete against the competition.VN750: On paper, this air-cooled v-twin with its shaft drive and very laid back riding position looked the part to do good business in the USA. But lack of dealer numbers and promotion activity sent a perfectly acceptable bike to an early grave. Selling motorcycles in a saturated market is a tough business.
SUZUKI
RE5: Rotary: Suzuki were carried along with the rotary trend of the early 1970s with a big R&D program resulting in the totally different RE5. It was big, heavy and complex. Buyers resisted it from the beginning and despite an upgrade to improve the styling, the bike was withdrawn from the market. For the factory this was an incredibly expensive exercise and arguably motorcycling’s biggest flop.GR650: Yet another Japanese version of the British twin, only this was the last of all the traditional Japanese parallel twins in the classic era. It was light, had a mono-shock rear and worked well, with no real faults. But this sector of the market was all but done and sales volumes were next to nothing so forcing the end.VX800: Following the very ordinary sales of the VS750 v-twin sport cruiser, this factory obviously thought they could make reasonable business out of producing a tourer version. Although it did nothing wrong, sales were very low. The factory had to push the stop button.
YAMAHA
XV500: This relatively simple air cooled v-twin with shaft drive was released at an attractive price hoping to capture sales in the light tourer sector. Despite being a good machine it failed mainly because it slotted into no specific market in any major country to be a platform. The days of making a nice bike that would sell on the basis of being a nice 500 had gone.XZ550: Someone in this factory obviously thought that a truly different bike could sell if the layout was impressive. They were wrong. Although this reasonably light water-cooled v-twin with shaft drive was a technically impressive machine, it certainly did not hit any sales notes with buyers.TX750 twin: Clearly the Yamaha engineers in the early 1970s wanted a hi-tech version of a 750 twin and started with a clean drawing board. But their lack of experience designing all-new four strokes saw this something-and-nothing unusual design impress very few people. Sales flopped, no Mk2 emerged and the maker was forced to do what the Japanese hate – admit a mistake. (Considering the deserved success of their excellent 650 twin, this bigger twin’s failure must have been a bitter blow for the factory.)XV1000: The big v-twin was launched with much fanfare and certainly on paper the shaft-driven tourer looked the part. Although it remained in low volume production for a few years, it never really made anything like the numbers expected. It is more proof of the principle that sales success is not always dependent on good design.GTS1000: If the factory hoped fitting a very different – and conspicuous – front end could make a successful bike, then this centre-steered big tourer proved them wrong. The price was also far too high. The industry certainly learnt a lesson on this one.Yamaha XS360: The sales brochure stated, “The new XS360 is a motorcycle that will be written and talked about for years to come.” That’s because most stayed in the showrooms for at least that long, such was the tepid reception the model received when launched in 1976. It was fitted with a six-speed gearbox, rare for the time, because it needed it. By 1977 is was gone.Yamaha XS1100 Venturer: Yamaha had massive ambitions of their fully faired big tourer in the USA market in the late 1970s and invested a fortune in marketing. They even paid for huge highway display advertising. While there was nothing wrong with the bike, its formula obviously did not impress sufficient buyers and dealers reported little interest and disappointing sales. Probably a case of too much too soon, especially in advertising. By the time consumerism slowly moved acceptance up to very large tourers, this hi-spec Series One had been sidelined and the advertising manager fired.This article first appeared in Old Bike Australasia Issue 85. You can still purchase this back issue by clicking the cover for more info.
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