The Honda Gold Wing is one of the world's most recognizable and successful bikes: a grand tourer on a grand scale. Designed to bring car-like ride and comfort to the motorcycle world, the Gold Wing has a dedicated following that few other bikes can match. Phil West's history of this iconic machine tells the full story, from the launch of the GL1000 in 1975 to the low-down on the latest model.
For his eighth birthday, Emilio Scotto received a World Atlas. Promptly he announced his plan to make a route that would pass through all the countries of the world, a route he named BLUE ROAD ONE. When, some years later, he found himself astride a black 1100 Honda Gold Wing motorcycle, Blue Road One beckoned, and Scotto set off on a journey that would last more than a decade, take him virtually everywhere in the world, and land him in the Guinness Book of World Records. This is his story, a thrill ride that begins in his native Argentina, crosses Panama in the tumultuous time of Noriega, Mexico in the midst of an earthquake, and finds him broke in L.A. where, in a chance meeting, Muhammad Ali gives him fifty dollars and a signed book. Breaching the Iron Curtain, crossing the Berlin Wall at Checkpoint Charlie, being blessed by the Pope, set upon by cannibals in Sierra Leone, fleeing Somalia on a freighter, Scotto's adventures would be unbelievable if they weren't true. His tale of touring the world from Tunisia to Turkey, Petra to Afghanistan, Yugoslavia to Singapore, traveling miles enough to take him to the moon and back, is unlike any ever told. Come along, for the ride of a lifetime.
Evolution or revolution ... this was the dilemma Honda faced in creating the new fifth generation Gold Wing. Consumers were happy with the near-perfect GL1500 Gold Wing, but sales were declining and owners ageing.In 1996 Honda's designers and engineers decided the only way forward for the Gold Wing was a revolutionary approach. Given a brief by management to incorporate more 'Fun Factor' and make a large luxury touring motorcycle perform like a sports orientated machine, their target market was the younger rider.The GL1800 Gold Wing launched as a 2001 model and was updated in 2006 with the world's first and only motorcycle airbag system. Surviving a production return to Japan it had a second face-lift for 2012 and from that, two other variants emerged, a 'Bagger' and 'Power Cruiser', the F6B and Valkyrie/F6C.The GL1800 was destined to become the longest running Gold Wing series, but over its 17 years of production Honda faced stiff competition.Peter Rakestrow examines the GL1800's history from 1996 to the end of production in 2017, looking at model improvements through the years of this legendary marque, creating a point of reference for owners, buyers and restorers alike.
In the late 1980's Honda trounced the competition with a machine that was destined to dominate the touring sector of motorcycling right into the twenty-first century. This book explores the history and development of Honda's now classic GL1500 Gold Wing from 1988 to 2000.
Few paint a more vivid or varied picture of the joys of riding than this collection of stories from a motorcycling life by Lance Oliver, who has spent more time than most of us thinking about and writing about the art and practicalities of motorcycling.
