1968 Honda CL350 Scrambler. Owner: Jack Wagner, Grover Beach, California.

Honda motorcycles opened for business in the American market in 1959, when the four-stroke 50cc Super Cub came on the market. And over the next 10 years the company acquired a very positive reputation, well deserved, for having high revving, hard hitting, highly dependable products, especially with its 305 series, like the CB77 Super Hawk and CL77 Scrambler.

But, as we say about horses, the 305s were getting a bit long in the tooth. What to do" Shouldn?t cost too much because lots of money was going into the carefully kept secret–the four-cylinder CB750. Having a different number would be good, from 305 to 350. The bore was increased from 60 to 64mm, the stroke reduced from 54 to 50.6mm, the true size of the “new” engine being only 325cc. No matter, as minor exaggeration is considered to be quite acceptable in the advertising world.
Honda used it in three models, the 1968 CB Super Sport and CL Scrambler, and a year later the SL Motorsport. All told, more than 600,000 of these 350s were sold in the U.S. over the six years of production, which means a lot of them are probably still stashed in old barns or forgotten behind the junk in the back of the garage. Here we are dealing with the Scrambler version, better characterized as a street-scrambler, having only minor pretensions to being competent off the pavement. It was a styling thing, much like the “adventure̶...