Anybody else seen the NR750 in Kaohsiung?

Life Cars & Motorcycles
#1

Last weekend (I think) I drove down to the small, usually pretty deserted beach at the University where I often just take time to chill out, and saw one of these beauties parked amongst the three or four scooters that were also there:

I believe that only about 200 of these were ever made, and I never imagined that I’d see one in Kaohsiung.

The list price in 1992 was around NT$2,100,000…

Stunning looking bike. I just wished my girlfriend had brought her camera with us that time! I doubt I’ll see it again, I’m sure the owner of such a bike doesn’t often take it down dirty, pot-hole lined roads at the mercy of scratches from scooters, bicycles and taxis…

There was also a really souped up-looking R6 with a flashy racetrack paintjob next to it, also a beautiful looking bike, but I’ve seen it around here before and it’s not as if there are only 200 R6’s in the world…

#2

If that bike was made back in 1992…then it’s probably a “No Plater” and if so then there’s about a 95% chance it was stolen from someone. There’s a good chance the owner doesn’t even realize how rare his bike is.

Before big bikes were legal the majority of the ones sold in Taiwan were stolen from other countries. I was at a big bike shop once when they got a new shipment in…first thing they did was rip off all the ignitions and order new ones from the companies.

You think the companies would get suspicious about the same store ordering multiple ignition units on a regular basis…but hey…the more bikes get stolen and sent to other countries…the more the original owners have to buy new bikes.

#3

Damn, I didn’t even think about that… If that bike’s stolen, the former owner must be one pissed off bastard. That’s not exactly something that you can just buy another one of.

On the other hand, the owner might be someone who is a collector and has bought it second hand and imported it legally from another country - at what cost, I’d hate to imagine, given that the bike is worth (probably a lot more now, right?) NT2 million to begin with.

#4

The illegal importer food chain would never have allowed a bike like that to pass through without relieving someone of a huge sum of money. Probably owned by a cop. Or a gangster. Probably legit. What am I saying. Probably some other bike made up to look like NR750. Mind you there are people rich and well connected here to fork our several millions on bikes. Hard to believe it was 1992…

#5

This wasn’t another bike with a NR750 skin, I’m pretty sure - the windshield had the famously expensive titanium coating, I could see that. And there’s definitely motorists with money to spend down here, I’ve seen a few Ferraris and the like driving around here regularly.

#6

I’ve seen a Lamborghini Diablo on the street.

#7

My friend’s friend owns a Maserati. Apparently there are about four of them in Taiwan.

#8

My dad can beat up your dad.

#9

But what car has he got?

#10

I’m with Mordeth on this one… those things were just too exotic, too limited edition, waaay too expensive and made almost 10 years before the market opened here… I’d say it was stolen in Japan and “fell off a boat” in Gaoxiung strangely missing it’s engine and chassis numbers, as great many big bikes used to… In fact I used to know a guy who could arrange bikes to “fall off a ship from Japan” to order, back before the market opened… (never let it be said the Taiwanese didn’t take advantage of their WTO/international law grey area status)

Even if it was real, you could probably out run it on a 125cc scoot… whilst it was a fairly fearsome beast back in the early 90’s I personally guarantee that there is no local alive on Taiwan today who could possibly have even the slightest semblance of the ability to service and tune a 32 valve, oval piston, exotic material, V4 that was very ‘left field’ even for Honda… No. way.

So we can be confident the last time the 8 valves per cyclinder were set even remotely accurately was at least 14 years ago,not to mention the fiendishly complicated actuation system… In fact they probably long since just welded most of them shut and turned it into a 4valve 180cc single!.. chabuduo… :laughing:

#11

[quote=“plasmatron”]I personally guarantee that there is no local alive on Taiwan today who could possibly have even the slightest semblance of the ability to service and tune a 32 valve, oval piston, exotic material, V4 that was very ‘left field’ even for Honda… No. way.[/quote]… let alone rebore one! I can just imagine some local machine shop owner with a new NR piston in one hand, worn out cylinder in the other, wondering how the hell he’s going to hone it. :laughing:

You guys I’m sure remember that Honda released that model basically to thumb it’s nose at FIA for blocking it’s efforts to compete against the two-strokes of the day (500cc GP) by not allowing them to run an eight piston NR500 in a class limited to four cylinders. They hurriedly revised the design to the now-famous oval piston, but it still wasn’t enough to compete. Having thrown so much cash (and Freddie Spencer) at the project they couldn’t really do much else but release this technology showpiece on the market, and then forget about it as quickly as possible. The next year they launched the V3 NSR500, and the NR concept was never mentioned again. IIRC it was only a year or two later that Yamaha launched the 20 valve FZ750 which could easily hit over 110% VE and no one has seriously suggested cramming more valves into a cylinder since.

#12

[quote=“Mordeth”]
Before big bikes were legal the majority of the ones sold in Taiwan were stolen from other countries.[/quote]Pretty much. Back in the days of the bubble economy they used to take advantage of the dirt cheap prices on used bikes in Japan. I used go there pretty often and see literally thousands of bikes sitting around abandoned that were less than two years old, and possibly had not yet even been launched on markets in the west. They could hardly give them away. Of course it didn’t take long before someone figured out they could turn an outrageous profit into an obscene one by stealing the bikes instead of buying them… :unamused: … and then the bubble burst, used prices headed upward, and the SOP became steal to order.