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While teasers and partial images have been floating around for a while, the new Honda Hawk 11 café racer was finally unveiled in the real world this weekend at the Osaka Motorcycle Show in Japan. There are still many details we don't know, but at least we now know for sure what it looks like.
Built around the same 1,084 cc, liquid-cooled, eight-valve, parallel twin that powers the Africa Twin adventure-tourer, the Rebel 1100 cruiser and the so-far-Europe-only NT1100 sport-tourer, the Hawk 11 appears to layer one more style on top of the same proven package of parts. With its LED headlight and circular daytime running light in that familiar-looking fairing, there's some similarity to the Triumph Speed Triple RR that created a lot of buzz last year, but the Honda will provide a little less performance and probably cost a lot less. Just as the Rebel 1100 is a bargain in the cruiser world, I expect the Hawk 11 to be a good buy in the liter-sized café racer segment — if that niche is even big enough to be called a segment.
Honda hasn't given us actual specs, or a price, or even said if the motorcycle is coming to the U.S. market, though I expect it will. So if you're like me and didn't make it to Japan this weekend, about all we have to go on are the videos Honda has released on its Japanese web site. Here's an overview.
There are a few elements that recall the CB4 Interceptor concept bike Honda displayed more than four years ago. Concept bikes never have distracting but essential elements such as mirrors and turn signals, but street bikes must. In this case, I like what Honda has done with both. Those mirrors are a clever touch, in terms of styling. (Now I just have to hope they work and you can actually see something in them. I'll consider Honda innocent until proven guilty on that count.)
With the engine and chassis looking like what we've come to know from the Africa Twin, but here paired with 17-inch wheels and street-oriented brakes and suspension, performance is likely to be good but not extreme. Though we don't know much about the internals, Honda did post a video letting you hear the Hawk 11 start up. Spoiler alert: Sounds a lot like an Africa Twin starting up.
Honda posted photos that show the riding position, and this is definitely a café racer. The forward lean looks pretty aggressive and the passenger accommodations appear appropriate for taking your limber and athletic 12-year-old a few miles to soccer practice. At least she'll arrive on something cooler than yet another suburban crossover.
Honda also gave us an appropriately moody video of a guy zipping up his leathers and riding the Hawk 11. Below, if that's your sort of thing.
The Hawk name, along with the Super Hawk and Nighthawk variants, has a long history with Honda, going back to the CB72 Hawk of the 1960s and the successor CB77 Super Hawk, which some consider to be Honda's first sport bike, even if it was making less than 30 horsepower. The CB400T Hawk of the 1970s and the various Nighthawk models from the 1980s onward were mostly standard-style motorcycles, but things got more interesting in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the Hawk GT. With its liquid-cooled V-twin and single-sided swingarm, it was either ahead of its time or just too expensive, so it became one of those slow sellers that later develops a cult following. Things got even more interesting in the late 1990s with the VTR1000F Superhawk, which was called a Firestorm in most of the world. The Hawk 11 looks to have at least the potential of being a worthy successor to the interesting bikes to use that name.
Here's hoping we get more details soon from Honda and the Hawk migrates to this side of the Pacific.
