Whether it’s a new bike, car, house, watch or laptop – the temptation is always the same. You want the biggest and the best. You want all the options. You want the heated whatsits, the laser doo-dads and, yes please, I think I will take the carbon fibre weapons pack, thank you very much. For Brisbane’s Ellaspede and customer Kevin, the negotiations started in the time-honoured tradition. What could he get for his hard-earned bucks" But somewhere between ?hello? and the handshake, it was decided that this build would tick all the boxes. The result in this ?78 Honda CB550 that we think is the complete package. Ellaspede’s Hughan Seary tells us more.

Is the 550 Four the best all round Honda of the 70?s" It just might be. Owner Kevin wanted a Honda CB cafe racer and after owning the smaller CB350 twin he knew something a little larger from the same family tree was going to be right in the sweet spot for this project. In the mid 70?s many manufacturers were still experimenting with their public offerings, including Honda who already had the smaller CB?s (350 and 400?s) and their big CB750. But it was the battle for the mid market that produced a number of new bikes including the Yamaha TX500 and Suzuki GT550. Honda evolved the CB450 ?black bomber? twin into a CB500 twin to compete, but soon replaced it with a 4 cylinder 500 version. It wasn’t long before the 500cc mill was taken out to 544cc to create the CB550 Four, but it took until ?...