Written by Martin Hodgson
From Mr. T’s haircut to the DeLorean, shoulder pads and the Rubik’s Cube, everything that was popular in the ’80s seemed to have square edges. Add the fashion, some of that god awful synthesiser music and boy is it a decade that leaves a lot to be desired. The motorcycles were much the same, the British had collapsed, the two-strokes were all but gone and the superbike was yet to fully ripen. But now emerging from left field as the prices drop to temptingly low amounts, are good candidates for a custom makeover. Germany’s AMP Motorcycles has taken once such example, the Honda CBX750 and hit it out of the park with this remarkable retro remake.

The original Honda CB750 is an icon of the motorcycle industry and for its sheer impact is one of the most important machines of the last century. For more than a decade it was the pride of the Honda fleet, with its smaller siblings doing very well too. So when Honda released plans of not one, but two new sportsbikes there was understandably high expectations. Then they arrived, the VF750 with its ‘chocolate cams’ that crumbled like aged cheese and the CBX deemed too square for the square generation and sat on showroom floors unloved.
But when a client rolled a 1986 model into the AMP workshop, father and son duo Michael and Allen Posenauer, could see the potential! The engine loves to rev and self-adjusting tappets make servicing a breeze. The suspension and brakes were...