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Comment by vr46 | Hacker News Reader

The VFR had such a great unique sound, could hear them approaching in the city. I had a 1998 which didn’t last too long but it was fabulous sounding. Only four cylinder bike I owned, it’s been twins all the way for me otherwise and for my ears, nothing beats the V-twin grin :) But older VFRs before they got heavy are wonderful.

On the subject of the article, I hooned an F355 around Silverstone and while it sounded good, it was dull to drive at lower speeds and the Elise spanked it for fun.

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The VFR400 ran for three generations (NC21, NC24, NC30) from 1986 to 1992. The successor was the RVF400 (NC35) which had a similar (same? different cams?) engine to the NC30 but a different intake and tank and inverted forks. It only ran as late as 1996. There were complimentary VFR750s for some of those years, including as late as 1998. Was your VFR a 400 or 750? If it was a 750 you had one highly desirable bike. From what I understand the last Soichiro himself developed.

Regarding the heavy weight in the later 1990s the VFR name was applied to sport touring bikes that had V4s but not big-bang 360 cranks. My NC30 weighs less than 400lb wet and is definitely not a touring bike.

Agreed on the V-twins. I would still love to have a RVT1000 but those command too high a price when Ducati Superbikes can be had for half the price.

I had an 800 and it was slow and heavy to my mind, was not devastated when it was stolen.

We didn’t see too many 400s in the UK, I think they were all unofficial imports but was a long time ago to remember.

Mate has a VTR1000 Firestorm if that’s what you meant? Outstanding bike, extremely hard to keep under 100mph, fuel tank was genuinely stupidly small. The SP1 and 2 were the superbikes IIRC and different beasts to the Firestorm, never had the pleasure of riding one of the superbikes. But yes, a Duke 998 over an SP1 I think.

The RC51 was the successor to the RVF750R (RC45) which was the successor to the VFR750R (RC30) and was built to beat Ducati at their own game in the superbike world championship. In the US the RC51 was called the RVT1000R, in the UK and Australia it was called the VTR1000 SP1 or SP2. The VTR1000 Firestorm (SuperHawk in the US) is a different bike, not intended for racing homologation but designed for the street. The VFR800 was a sport touring bike, very different from the RC30. The NC30 and NC35 VFR400s were sold legitimately in the UK after several years of grey import but were unreasonably expensive. My 1991 VFR400 was originally sold in Japan (1991 was JP-only), was imported to the UK (grey) and made it to the US as soon as it was 25.

These bikes were the end of an era. After the RC51 Honda went to the inline-four CBR1000RR Fireblade and never looked back.

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