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Magazines

birdland

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 3, 2020
Total Posts
578
Total likes
41
Location
Osoyoos B.C. Canada
A friend in town is a motorcycle magazine collector - he dropped off a bag of relevant material today. I’ll go through these and take pics of all the articles.

There are some really fun historical pieces.

Might take a while - but I’ll post here when I get to it.


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Excellent, looking forward to them. I've actually seen the one mentioned on the cover of the one you posted above. Can you scan them as opposed to taking pictures though? It would make the articles easier to read if possible.
 
Excellent, looking forward to them. I've actually seen the one mentioned on the cover of the one you posted above. Can you scan them as opposed to taking pictures though? It would make the articles easier to read if possible.

I’ll give it a shot - haven’t used the scanner on my printer since I moved but how hard can it be? [emoji23]
 
I’ll give it a shot - haven’t used the scanner on my printer since I moved but how hard can it be? [emoji23]

SHOULD be a piece of cake for someone with your knowledge in that field... but I know how printer/scanners can be. I'm stuck with an HP all in one that the printer quit working on about 4 years ago, the behemoth (oversized glass for large documents, it was on sale when we bought it in 2016) is relegated to just a scanner and argues with me every time I start it because the cartridges in it are gone after the nozzles got clogged. Good thing I still have the old HP Laserjet office printer, now well over 10 years old and still going strong.

Good luck. :lol:
 
I have an ancient HP all in one job on the PC upstairs. Amazingly enough, Windows 11 finds it and allows me to import photos into M$Paint and M$ Photomanager, used it the other day to scan pages out of that Ladybird book. It still works as a stand alone photocopier as well, which is useful.
 
This is great Doug. You've given me another project here, as I've received a pile of vintage mags from a friend that needs going through.

Perhaps we could have a sticky for these that could be added to for all to enjoy.
 
This is great Doug. You've given me another project here, as I've received a pile of vintage mags from a friend that needs going through.

Perhaps we could have a sticky for these that could be added to for all to enjoy.

Same thing here. I've been connecting with locals who see the bike and stop to chat. These are from a Harley guy who just loves the 450's. I was having a coffee in the summer at one of the local spots, he ran home to get a bag with these mags in it. Great guy. Tons of good conversation.
 
Very nice! Thanks!
A lot of these old articles sometimes used Honda factory photos that just don't exist any where else any more.
 
A stock CL450 with those wonderful chrome pipes as the 'Finishing Touch' from Mr. Honda is a Great machine to look at ;) :heart:
 
Nice job with the scans Doug! Thanks so much for taking the time to share here on the forum (y)
 
Good stuff Doug, love reading old road tests.

It's interesting to me to see the critical nature of the earlier reviews - when these were new out of the box and untested. The readership of the mags was likely less than a youtube channel gets in a single day these days. They were making comparisons to equipment that had standardized and innovation was a beast to them.

There's a lot of future they hadn't seen yet.
 
Motorcycle Classics September 2015

My favorite year CL450 with the best sounding factory exhaust of any twin Honda made. IMO it has the cleanest look and a great tank shape, no crazy batwing stripes, just a beautiful candy color and a classic Honda emblem. And also one of the best looking front fenders on any Honda from that era.

I'd bet there was interesting reading about the IOM races in the September '65 CW article mentioned on the cover in your first post, Honda was still active with the multi-cylinder engines then.
 
It's interesting to me to see the critical nature of the earlier reviews - when these were new out of the box and untested. The readership of the mags was likely less than a youtube channel gets in a single day these days. They were making comparisons to equipment that had standardized and innovation was a beast to them.

There's a lot of future they hadn't seen yet.

Yes, I always find that part interesting too. What we now know of these bikes was mostly yet to be fully understood and appreciated then, and of course the early styling didn't appeal to the public yet has managed to become a cult following decades later.

Another angle that would probably be much harder to find from that era of bike magazines would be the occasional article about the racing efforts of some in the US with the 450, people like Gordon Jennings as well as Precision Machining (now known as Kibblewhite) who was one of the first, if not the first, to convert a 450 head to coil valve springs. Of course, Bob Hansen carried the torch for quite a while himself after the initial Honda-backed effort in '67 at Daytona and then handed it off to Terry Naughtin who won a few AHRMA championships as well before retiring in the last couple years (and sadly, his website is no longer up so the championships and fabulous engines he built can't be viewed anymore). There had to be more than a few articles out there but finding them would be a significant challenge.
 
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