(first posted 10/9/2015) In retrospect, it’s a bit surprising that the Japanese automobile invasion wasn’t more fully anticipated. Given how Japanese manufacturers totally overran the camera, small electronics and motorcycle industries, the Big Three should have just liquidated themselves while they could still get good prices for their assets.
Ok; that wasn’t likely. But the Japanese turned the motorcycle industry on its head, essentially destroying the British makers and nearly so Harley Davidson. And this is the bike that led the charge: Honda’s biggest bike when they launched their invasion of America in 1959. Yes, it could only have been a dream at the time for Soichiro Honda, but it quickly became a nightmare for everyone else.
As compelling as it is, we’re not going to do a proper history of Honda today. But things always happened quickly at the Honda of yore, when that restless man was running the show. Only nine years passed between his 1947 Model A, a motor-assisted bicycle, to the first C70 Dream. That Model A used a war-surplus two-stroke engine, and Honda hated its smoky ways, which motivated him to become the ultimate master of the small four stroke engine.
By 1953, Honda’s Benley (1953 shown) series of single-cylinder four strokes were rolling out of his factory. The learning curve was steep, as the first models had issues of one kind or another. But those were soon mastered, and ever better and faster Benleys emerged.
The next step was a larger bike, a twin, no less. The result was the 1956 C70 Dream 250. It was the first high-powered twin in its class, which was dominated by single cylinder engines. Its 18+ hp was made at the then-almost unheard of 7400 rpm. Everyone assumed that such a high revving engine would never last in a street bike. They didn’t know Honda.
Admittedly, the basic configuration (except for the twin cylinder engine) was inspired by the NSU Supermax, which Honda had seen on his seminal trip to Europe in 1955. But it wasn’t just the revolutionary OHC engine that made the Honda Dream unique; it was also its styling.
Honda led the styling design effort, and worked with clay models. He came up with the angular design motif, which he called the “Buddhist temple” style. Honda knew that in pushing exports, his bikes would be representing his country, so he took of ten days from work and visited the ancient temples of Nara and Kyoto.
Sachi Honda was the only person to accompany her husband on this trip. She remembered:
“As usual, he didn’t give a word of explanation about why we were going. Day after day, we visited Buddhist temples. One day, when we were at Sanzen-in temple in the Ohara area of Kyoto, he stopped still in front of a certain image of the Buddha. He didn’t move, even when the temple visiting hours were over. He was so absorbed in it that one of the priests brought a flashlight so he could see it better. When I asked him why he had been looking at it that way, he just said to me, ‘It has nothing to do with you.’ Later, though, I found out what it was all about.”
Mr. Honda himself said:
“I designed the lines on the side of the Dream C70 gas tank with a picture in my mind of the curve from the eyebrow to the nose on a figure of the Buddha.”
Buddhist-inspired design has become more commonplace, but like in so many other ways, Honda was ahead of his time.
It wasn’t just the angular design of body; the engine’s visual design was a masterpiece, and one that outlasted the Dream. It became the model for all of Honda’s future twins for quite some time.
The Italian motorcycle manufacturer Laverda faithfully scaled up and copied the dream’s engine for its 750 bikes in the 70s. Not that it bought them much time.
The Dream was of course a period piece, straight out of the heart of the 50s. it was sold in several series with variations until the mid-late 60s.
But by then it had long been overshadowed by Honda’s next act, the one that really put it on the world’s center stage. The CB77 305 Super Hawk with an engine clearly derived from the Dream, now sported 28 hp at 9,000 rpm, fast enough to top 100 mph. Although it had half the displacement, it was putting serious pressure on the vaunted vertical twins from Great Britain, and at a significantly lower price. Never mind the lack of oil leaks and other endless maladies.
Although the Dream 305 had 23 to 25 hp depending on the model, and a top speed of some 84 mph, in today’s world these are petite bikes, and best suited for a leisurely summer evening cruise, as this one was undoubtedly doing when I caught it in front of a restaurant in downtown Eugene.
Just the thing for a mid-summer nights dream ride.
“leisurely evening cruise:” That’s the beauty of a small bike.
I’m not into motorcycles, but I do like these vintage Honda motorcycles. These look easier to ride than what’s being sold today, and safer, too. They’re slower than today’s motorcycle, which I would think would make it easier to ride around town.
Beautiful bikes. First street bike was a well used and battered ’66 Super Hawk 305. Think I paid $65.00 for it. It didn’t last too long, got harder and harder to shift and was replaced by a ’70 CB 450. That one was in great shape, and still ran perfectly years later when I sold it.
There was a CB77 ridden by Scouse(can’t remember his real name, he was from Liverpool) one of the 6th form boys at my school in the early 70s. I never understood the strange sized engines on these.As you said it was oiltight(unlike his mate’s 350 Triumph which my brother bought)
The Laverda is beautiful,I remember seeing a picture of Evel Knievel on the American Eagle version in my brother’s bike magazine.
British motor cycles can be made oil tight, Its not difficult just some time spent with a lapping plate some Hylomar and carefull assembly will do it, something the factories didnt bother with,
Honda did decimate the British motor cycle industry HD survived on the US government teat for decades, The British industry hadnt the same tariff barrier to protect it.
Familiar with blue Hylomar, helped my brother with his bikes (mainly Triumphs,BSAs & Harley Sportsters) a few times.
WE used to get thru tons of it overhauling BTH steam turbines the entire oil pump assemblies were glued together with blue Hylomar, great stuff and of course lots of it got liberated for home duties.
It’s the old joke amongst the American vintage British motorcycle community – usually said upon gazing upon a nice 95-100 point restoration.
“If they’d have built them this well when they were new, they’d have never gone out of business.”
Same goes for carefully reassembled over -restored cars which I remember new with jagged spotwelds in the door and bonnet shuts.
@Bryce :
Ain’t that the truth ! , I too was there and remember horrible build quality of almost all brands when new .
A large part of why the hated VW Beetle sold so many : they had the best Q.C. in the business at the time .
Some are still fairly crude ~ my 1994 Russian Ural Motocycles are cobby beyond belief but sturdy, reliable and dead easy to repair when necessary .
I run my 1994 Tourist 650 wide open most of the time and have never had the heads off, still on the original clutch .
-Nate
-Nate
Love it, what a beauty! Are parts as hard to find and pricey as other old bikes?
Way more difficult.
Right now, at the shop where I work, we can probably get you some of the essential parts for a Honda from 1969 on up, the bigger bikes at least. Tinware, any body kit, forget about it. If anything, you’ll have a much easier time restoring a 1960-on Triumph, BSA, or Norton twin than anything Japanese of that vintage.
The British bikes have a pretty good aftermarket supply, at least for the major brands. Harley Davidsons have an incredible aftermarket. I can build a 1936 Knucklehead from scratch, period exact (not merely correct), without using one original part.
The reason for this is the British and Americans only made a couple of different motorcycles, usually only a couple of engines, and then did various trim differences. Conversely, Honda was infamous for having a dozen or so different motorcycles at any one time, in various sizes (50-305 at first, 50-1000 later) with very little interchangeability between them. Which means what aftermarket is out there is only for a couple of the best known examples: C70 and C77 Super Hawk, CB450, CB750, etc.
And there’s damned little support for all those classic 250’s and 350’s that were the bread and butter for Honda’s line during the 60’s and 70’s – as many hipsters who have decided to become part of the current cafe racer movement have found to their misery. (Please excuse the snark, I built my first caffed out CB350 back in 1977, and this is one of the few time in my life I don’t have a cafe racer sitting in my garage. The johnny come lately types cause me to snicker.)
Almost same for cars. Even though Chrysler F-Body is pretty rare almost no existence these days, only grill is hard to find, all the remaining parts are cheap and readily available, and it’s pretty easy to borrow parts from M-Body anyway.
While a common ’90s Accord has hard time finding parts, and price could be outrageous.
I figured as much. I’d love to pick up some old Japanese bikes and fix them up but I don’t like playing the parts game. I’ve got an old Magna that’s not too bad to find parts for, but there’s still quite a few of them around. You can even get some parts from the aftermarket, which is great as OEM is always stupid expensive.
Two things:
1) These bikes are usually reliable, even in their old age. My recently sold ’76 CB200T was used regularly by me for 8 seasons and never let me down.
2) eBay is your friend. You can find most of what you need. A lot of people make an eBay business parting out bikes.
These old Honda twins are great engines.
Agree completely on both points, but with Ebay sometimes you got to be patient. Additionally, as a Canadian I get a 25% currency surcharge plus sometimes ridiculous shipping and import charges. I wasn’t complaining a few years ago when our dollar was worth slightly more…for about a month.
Now, having said “way more difficult” there are sources.
There are guys out there who have made a business of buying out the parts departments of Honda dealers who are closing down, and have done so since the mid-60’s. Do some Google searches, the sources can be found.
The big deal is: part numbers. Either find yourself a fiche and fiche reader for the bike you want to do, or find somebody who has taken a parts fiche for that bike, printed it out, and bound it. They’re quite common, usually for sale at any vintage bike show with a decent swap area.
These people who have the parts don’t want to hear long winded explanations of what you need. They want the original parts numbers, and they’ll be able to tell you very quickly if they’ve got it or not.
Yeah, finding the parts are difficult – until you start discovering the sources. Then life gets a hell of a lot easier.
My facebook news feed keeps featuring Royal Enfield latest Cafe Racer $9,999 NZ pesos, looks cool,
A buddy of mine has one. Very nice. Always liked the Royal Enfields but could never bring myself to pull the trigger.
Why?
At least until a couple of years ago, I could buy a fully restored 70’s Triumph Bonneville for the same kind of money, have an easier time getting parts for the Triumph (unless you’ve got a good local Enfield dealer), and besides a half-fettled Bonneville will kick ass on any Enfield Bullet 500 – new or vintage.
Prices on the Triumphs have gotten higher, so the Enfield starts looking a bit better now.
Nice little cruiser, although I’m more of a Super Hawk sort of rider.
One thing that hasn’t happened much is Chinese bikes coming to North America, not directly anyway.
There have been many attempts, but they seem to only last a few years before disappearing and leaving customers without support or parts.
Yes. When I hear Chinese motorcycle I think of some no name POS purchased from pep boys or a pop up store in a mall.
The Koreans are an up and coming country for bikes. Hyosung is going to be like Hyundai.
How about Jim Morrison’s (Doors) 305 Scrambler:
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/07/25/jim-morrisons-1968-honda-305-scrambler-was-found-on-craigslist/
It sounds like people still don’t realize the necessity of competition and balance of power, especially among giant companies like automotive companies. Japanese car companies successfully lowered the wages for works all over the US, something GM and Chrysler never achieved, and how carefully they chose the location without unions more or less promoted Right to Work law, and eventually crooks like Snyder passed it in Michigan.
Without the generous wages to workers in car plants back then and now, and in many other sectors about Detroit automotive industry, people can not turn life around. It’s an important social ladder, and the equivalents from Toyota, Nissan aren’t capable enough. All Polish immigrants in Michigan started the life around automotive industry, and one generation later their children can have the financial basis to go through college and make a better living. Efficient wage isn’t capable for that. Without overpricing wages from Big Three, black people wouldn’t have the financial background to stand up for equality, and the only path was through automotive industry at the beginning. It is still providing a similar path to others like Arabians, Asians alike.
It sickens me to see how some foreign competitors managed to cut down the wages in the industry through the competition and people applause for that in name of the efficiency. And it takes the same crooks like Snyder inside Big Three to have the ideas moving production overseas. Without the still-not so low wages and stronger unions like in Chrysler, car workers won’t get too much more than in Walmart from Toyota, or they would be the first to shift production overseas. If middle class shrinks away, blame on both sides, but it’s the people in this country ruined it.
You’re bringing back some old, old memories for me. An uncle of mine had a Dream 305, pretty much identical to the featured bike. He was still riding it in the late 70s, and by that time, it looked very old-fashioned. Great post!
Not to add to the political comment but my family benifitted from the UAWs relationship with the automakers of the 60’s. My father was an immigrant from Mexico who worked hard and saved and sent all three of his kids to Catholic schools and all three of us graduated from college. I don’t think as many similar opportunites are available today. And no subsidies here. My folks paid full price for our pre-college schooling and we all worked all through college. About the bike… Check out the construction of the bike. It is built using monocouqe constuction. The rear fender, swing arm, main body and backbone, even the front forks are made from pressured steel stampings welded together. The engine is used as a structural member placed low. The forks contain small coil spring shock units with a pivoting link at the axle. This allowed for quicker and stronger manufacturing with less complexity and I’m sure it was easier to weld up the frame in a jig. When this type of appearance became archaic looking Honda and other manufacturere switched to full tubing construction. Later pressed steel was used for the steering neck and backbone which could be hidden by the tank,seat, and side covers. The back bone can be used to route wires and intake air to the airbox and other uses. Very clever. The pressed steel,leading link forks were very rigid for wheel location but the leading link allowed for a smoother ride with less brake dive. BMW used leading link forks until the early 1970s. One thing about these bikes is the tiny wheelbase. The bikes are so small that they make the average American rider of today look like a circus bear on a tricycle.
@ Jose: I sure agree about big guys on these bikes. A Navy Chief I was stationed with rode a 305 and it looked almost obscene when he rode it. I never owned one of these and they may have been better than some I did have later. I know they lasted well. So did the 175 and 350. I probably looked the same on my SL175 but honestly never cared.
Brings back memories.
One of the house masters at highschool had a pressed steel framed Honda as an alternative get to work vehicle for when his VW 1300 wouldnt start, He used the Honda most of the time I cant remember the engine size or model name but it was quite unusual even then when Triumphs BSAs and Nortons ruled the roost it took the 4 banger Hondas to really make them noticed and then only in a straight line.
The only motorcycle I’ve ever driven was a ’65 Honda 100 that looked much like this one. It was about 20 years old and still looked and ran great. My buddy sold it for $100 to a guy who was going to carry it around on the back of his motorhome.
I restored a Honda 305 Dream like the one you show here, Paul, back in 2005-10; and the hard parts to find wasn’t body parts, as E-bay had all kinds; but exhaust parts and tires. Especially white wall tires; I had to buy add-on white walls as couldn’t find anything in the 325×16 that the Dream uses. And finding somebody to paint it was not easy; especially on the south Oregon coast. Here is a picture, that I posted before, of my second Dream, but I don’t mind showing it again.☺
I collected , rebuilt and rode these all through the 1970’s , they were very good Motos indeed if slow…
My favorite was a CA78 , the last 305 Dream sold by Ed Kretz Honda in Highland Park (N.E. L.A.) .
It was bright red and ran like a top , I only weighed 160# in 1972 so I could get it up to 70 + MPH easily .
Dreams were the 250 & 305 C.C. models , the others were ” Benly ” witch means ‘ convenient ‘ in Japanese .
These things were worthless until a very few years ago sad to say .
The really cool thing about them was : they were designed from new to go as fast as it would go , in top gear , all day long without breaking , if you wished and I certainly did , I toured much of America on one .
-Nate
Two words “Moto-Mondial”
In 1957, Soichiro Honda approached Mondial owner Count Boselli for the purchase of a Mondial racebike, with which the firm had just won the 125 cc and 250 cc world titles. Count Boselli gave Mr. Honda a racing Mondial; Honda used this bike as a standard to which he aspired, in order to compete on a world-scale.
An original Mondial 125 cc racebike is the first bike on display when entering Honda’s Motegi Collection Hall.
In the mid 60’s had a 305 Dream Put on a Super Hawk head [ twin carb’s ] with dream camshafts and 2 barrel to block gaskets altering compression and cam timing with a 12 tooth sprocket up front and knobby rear tire was able to float the front end the full length of the Madras 1/4 mile drag strip and it was great on trail rides with front forks off a super hawk. Youth is not always wasted on the children. Norm
NORM :
What did you do to reinforce the sheet metal frame after you cut it to clear the dual carbies ? .
-Nate
As a kid, I always dreamed about owning 2 kinds of vehicles, first, a V8 and the other, a (any) Honda “Four”.
In the family, the V8s were way fewer than the Hondas, we had many CG 125, a 1974 500 Four, a 1980 CB 400, a 1988 CBX 750 and my last bike was a 2008 Twister 250… I loved them all.
That 1953 Bentley is a beauty. Nice article Paul, thanks for the cool informations.
I had, and sadly sold, a 1988 Honda ZB50. Made only 2 years, and sold here in America only in ’88. It was a small, street legal sportbike. Used the OHC 50/70 engine like so many other Honda trail bikes did. I took mine out to 110cc’s with all the usual mods. I am about 6 feet and 210 lbs. I had a friend, who was a Portland Police Officer, hit me with his radar gun on the frontage street in front of the shop. 71mph. On 10 inch tires, and 2 feet off the ground. And it could have used another gear(I had manual clutch, 4speed) The most amazing part is this engine, despite being twice it’s displacement,behaved like a total bone stocker. And the stock 50 engine could not pull a used condom off a limp dick.
Amazing engines. I have a Chinese copy 125cc (54x54mm) version in my 1960s Honda Cub… The crankcase, bearings etc are all exactly the same size as the 50/70 it’s based on, and it’s been utterly reliable and oiltight for 20-odd thousand miles so far. It’s got a roller-bearing camshaft like the later Hondas. A great tribute to the reliability of Honda’s design to be stretched to over twice its capacity, built with 2006-era Chinese metallurgy and quality control, and still be perfect!
My brother rode a red 305 Dream through graduate school in Michigan in the mid ’70s. He brought it to NY and left it at my parents’ house for a bit, and I got to drive it around the yard. Man, what a great ride from that front suspension. With its integral saddlebags and white walls, we called it “The Mini Electra Glide”.
I owned a Red 1965 305 CB77 Super Hawk back in the late 1960s
It was a great around town bike with plenty of pep to get up to speed quickly.
I had both fenders chrome plated and added a nice set of CB400 Muffler’s for a much better look and sound. I traded it plus some cash for a 1968 Suzuki Titan 500 -2 stroke,
I regretted that trade shortly after.
It’s good to remember there was a time when Honda products were guided by excellence, pride, and constant improvement, as well as profit. When the founder died, the slide began and hasn’t stopped.
Part of the reason for the scarcity of parts for these old Japanese bikes was the custom/ necessity of using small suppliers for sub-components. Early on at least, Honda did not have the capacity nor the space to build every piece in-house. Japan was then (as still was as least as far as the 1990’s) full of small manufacturing concerns – 10 guys with lathes etc.
This led to a couple of fortuitous results: the famous “Just In Time” delivery system which eliminates wasted production and allows immediate correction of design or quality flaws. We think of it as resulting from innovative thinking but it was really the result of necessity. The JIT system at first came about because of the limited capacity of the suppliers. They couldn’t work fast enough to allow parts stockpiles even if Honda had had the space to store them. Quality was also a big concern for the suppliers: make too many bad batches and you could be replaced by next Wednesday – the amount of time for your replacement to set up the tooling. However, Japanese custom dictates loyalty to good suppliers so it was worth the effort. You weren’t going to lose your Honda contract over a yen or two, if you had a history of reliable quality and delivery speed.
This small batch production also made it easy to try design changes; the cost of creating a new model (as long as the substantial castings were unchanged) was pretty small. So, you got a plethora of models looking for ‘the one’, the big hit; the Dream.
The downside of all this, for us now, is that the JIT small batch system means that there was not a lot of extra production of parts to sit dusty on a shelf waiting for a buyer in 2021, and the JIT small batch production system also meant that there was no advantage to interchangeability of parts between models or even years of production.
I have a personal example of how crazy this could get: I lived in Japan in the early 80’s and got into the Cafe Racer craze of the day (Japan has tons of beautiful mountain roads). My preferred mount was an old Yamaha XS 650 twin – narrow and torquey. Being a Cafe Racer, I had a small incident where I scuffed the bolt-end of my rear axle. Pride demanded an unscuffed one (we shall ignore the other parts required…). Being in Japan, and determined, I was able to locate one, but it was quite a hunt: the axle diameter was different that year and model than on other years and models. The explanation I got was that Yamaha used a different supplier that year. I always wonder about which component triggered that difference, as every related component, wheel hub, bearings, etc etc had to modified – for roughly a millimeter or two on a 12 millimeter shaft.
A ’66 305 Dream became my first “collectible” bike. A purcha$e price of $100, with delivery to my garage sealed the deal. Compared to my ’65 305 Super Hawk, well there was no comparison! However, the “large” 250/305 Dreams certainly were instrumental in Honda’s fantastic growth.
The power, handling and brakes of the Dreams were so inferior to the Hawk/Super Hawk that as a young Marine I never had any interest in a Dream; hence my 1965 purchase of my first 305 Super Hawk! Decades later I can view the Dreams as the important bikes that they were. The ping pong ride the Dream’s suspension provides is something I never did get used to. I much prefer to just study the shapes Honda worked into the Dream; interesting “eye candy”. 🙂 DFO
First ride I ever had on a motorcycle was freshman year of college, Fall 1968, on a C77 SuperHawk. It seemed kind of like the ultimate sports car, and I was instantly converted. Bought my first Suzuki the next year, and have had bikes off and on ever since, and still have a ’71 Kawasaki A7 2 stroke rotary-valve 350 Avenger.
Very Cool to see this repost of a CC Honda tonight. I have a ’68 CL175 I ‘restored’ to roadworthy condition and left mostly original- dents and faded paint intact. I had yet another trouble free ride on it this early evening. 20+ miles on the backroads of NW GA. I’ve named it the S.O.B.- Swarm Of Bees- for the sound it makes when it’s way up in the rpm range. It’s the last of the Honda ‘sloper’ motor design, with the CB/CL77 succeeded by the now legendary 1968 CB350 upright cylinder design and the similar CB/CL 175 upright cylinder design that premiered in 1969. Both sizes were upgraded with full loop frames replacing the engine -as -stressed -member designs featured here.
I have had little to no trouble finding parts-both used and NOS OEM- for this particular model (as well as some decent repro parts, even though it was a limited production run that bridged the 160 4-spd engine and the upright 5-spd 175 with little more than an increased bore and the 5 spd trans.
“a leisurely summer evening cruise”
The 2022 Kawasaki W800 is a great bike for that.