Written by Martin Hodgson
For those who are ahead of their time there must be a desperate frustration, often a deep depression, as the world around them fails to see the brilliance of their creation. In the late ’70s Honda moved one such man, engineer Shoichiro Irimajiri, from the head of F1 engine development to the motorcycle division and two of his creations were the CX500 and the CBX1000. The ugly commuter bike sold like hotcakes, while the revolutionary six ended up being given away to trade schools. But oh how times have changed; so when a man with an enviable collection of cars and bikes approached China’s Mandrill Garage wanting only the most desirable of builds, they quickly selected the singing six-cylinder Honda CBX.
?This project’s client is a senior car media person who has a lot of motorcycles, various brands, and types. So we believe his custom bike must be special, so we selected the CBX,? Mandrill’s Luo Hao told us. Then with the client, the team discussed a number of directions and styles in which they could take the build, but ultimately the decision was made to create a classic cafe racer with the engine to look like it could be taken from a race bike. While a considerable diet was also on the menu with the factory machine weighing nearly 600lbs wet.

But making those decisions was the easy part, importing motorcycles into China is not an easy task and is even more difficult with ‘luxury’ classed vehicles. So after a...