As far as I'm concerned, Honda made the Red Rockets in the late '70s, then carbon-copied the 490 to make their excellent CR480, and the rest just isn't really worth mentioning, except maybe the early Elsinores. What I see in Honda is a company that has the potential and even to a large extent, the engineering culture to produce some of the best bikes on the planet. They simply know how to roll in and take care of bidness. However, there's just one little bit of the formula that just turns the whole rest of it into manure, and that's this zealous anti-2T policy. Mr. Honda may tell the magazines that they stopped making two-strokes in order to make a more beautiful and healthy environment, complete with clearer skies and prettier butterflies, but this man KNOWS that one of his company's engineers produced a two-stroke that laid all their four-strokes to waste in emissions. That thing wasn't shut down because it couldn't perform, or wasn't good for the polar bears. It was shut down because... they just have something against two-strokes. I can't even begin to fathom why they take this silly little stance, but they do! Couple this with their propensity to lobby for unfair rules to support bad engineering, rather than creating good engine to conquer fair rules, and they've got themselves firmly mounted on the official JETZcorp Boycott List.
And if Honda wants off that list, they better turn around and become the engineering company they're so proud to claim themselves as. And here's an idea, how about they send one of their many many many PR people onto this forum once a week? Just assign the "forum guy" and have him make the rounds throughout some of the notable and influential internet forums, including this one. I mean, if someone from Maico can find the time to do it, surely a company as large as Honda can spare one guy for half an hour out of the week to try and address the one group of people that are going to go out and tell their friends not to buy their stuff.
