Honda is often cast as the most conservative of the mainstream motorcycle manufacturers. But Big Red also makes one of the strangest vehicles you can buy today: the X-ADV ?adventure scooter.?
The X-ADV is the offspring of Honda?s main motorcycle design studio in Kumamoto and its R&D facility in Italy, which might explain the curious mix of practicality and lunacy.

Deus Milano have now upped the brio factor with a custom version unveiled at EICMA. Called the ?Cub Cubed,? it?s a homage (or should that be omaggio") to the equally bizarre Cub EZ 90. Known in some markets as the EZ-9, it gained a cult following in?you guessed?the 1990s.

Is it too early for a 90s fluoro revival" On the evidence shown here, we?d say no. Deus have done a stunning job of replicating the vibe of the EZ 90, with a little help from the Milan studio Kaos Design.
?In some ways the EZ 90 is almost a toy,? says Deus boss Filippo Bassoli. ?So we decided to play too. The structure faithfully copies the original lines, but in XXL format. It took hundreds of hours of hard work: we built a model from which the molds for the carbon fiber fairings were made.?

This meant adding new brackets and mounting points using trial-and-error, but the result is spot on. The proportions and colors are a perfect match to the original EZ 90 (below), right down to the lettering on the flanks.
Deus have left the grunty 745cc parallel-twin engine alone. Taken from the NC750, it has a useful 54 hp and works...