They couldn’t have picked a worse time, but our friends at Deus ex Machina Japan have finally managed to open their new store in Tokyo’s historic Asakusa district. And they’re celebrating in style?with a very sharp and slightly offbeat Honda GL400 street tracker.
If you’re not overly familiar with the GL400, don’t worry?it’s not a particularly well documented model. Officially designated the ‘GL400 Wing,’ it was effectively a downscaled CX500, sold only in the Japanese market. So it came with the same transverse-mounted V-twin motor, and the same awkward silhouette.

This one started out as a 1980 model GL400 Custom: a model that, just like the CX500 Custom, had a teardrop tank, stepped seat and swept-back bars. But Deus Japan’s head wrench, Tomoyuki Soeda, has done a stellar job of shedding the Honda’s 70s pseudo-chopper styling. The only bits that still point to the original bike are its distinctive 80-degree cylinder heads and Comstar wheels, but Soeda-san has even managed to make those quirky hoops work to his advantage.

The biggest trick here is how well Deus Japan have reworked the GL400’s stance. Gone is the original low-riding twin shock rear arrangement, replaced by a new mono-shock system. To achieve this, Tomoyuki shaved the original shock mounts off the Honda’s OEM shaft drive swing arm, welded in new mounts, then bolted in the rear shock from a CB550.
Equal consideration was given up f...