Was I the only human on the planet who didn’t have a turbo vehicle in the 1980s? It seems like both cars and trucks, usually smaller imported cars but also some American vehicles, had turbos. This 1986 Honda CX650 Turbo is one of the turbo two-wheelers from that era. This one is listed here as a Barn Finds Classified, it’s located in the Sacramento, California area, and they’re asking $20,000.
I usually go right to Chrysler when I think of 1980s turbo vehicles, they had a gaggle of them well into the 1990s. Ford also had the Thunderbird Turbo and the Mustang SVO (a personal favorite). The General (GM) didn’t seem to offer as many turbo vehicles as other companies did but almost every company had a turbo car or truck in the mid to late-1980s and beyond.
Motorcycle manufacturers weren’t any different, they all wanted in on the rubberband-like turbo-lag action. I own more Hondas than anything and they made at least two cool turbo bikes: the gorgeous CX500 Turbo and the CX650 Turbo as seen here. I have a soft spot for Yamahas so my personal favorite is Yamaha’s XJ650 Seca Turbo, but Kawasaki had the GPz750 Turbo, and don’t forget Suzuki’s XN85 Turbo! If nothing else, their names were fantastic.
Yes, for the record, I would love to own all of the above bikes but I’m overwhelmed with two-wheel projects now and just motorcycles, in general. I have too many if there is such a thing. The Honda CX650 Turbo was introduced in 1983, a year after the CX500 Turbo debuted, and it was the only year that it was made. The turbo lag was pronounced on the CX500 so Honda fired back with the bigger 650 Turbo which helped a bit but these turbo bikes never really took off, no pun intended.
This bike appears to be in fantastic condition and it has 26,453 miles on it. That isn’t a mind-blowingly low amount of miles but it’s only an average of 678 miles a year over the last 39 years. The engine is Honda’s 674cc liquid-cooled overhead-valve V-twin which with the turbo had 100 horsepower. Hagerty is at $15,900 for a #1 Concours condition CX650 Turbo so I’m not sure if the seller will get their asking price but it’s always better to start a little too high than a little too low. Have any of you owned a turbo motorcycle?
Turbo. There’s a catch word, like hemi, or tachometers, a lot of vehicles had one, dang if the average person has a clue as to what it actually is. Don’t get me wrong, the “turbo” helped regain lost performance cheaply, but a unnecessary gee-gaw, really, unless you spend all day with the throttle wide open, like a diesel. Motorcycles are plenty fast without one.
Before moving to Colorado, I spent a summer in Upstate NY( I found out, anything north of the “city”, is considered “Upstate”) and the person I stayed with, had a CX500 like this, no turbo. It was neglected, and I got it going and inspected( ALL vehicles in NY need an inspection) and spent most of the summer cruising around the Catskills on it. While the scenery on a bike was nice, I hated the bike. It was uncomfortable, shaft drive quirky handling, hard to work on, got poor mileage, and SORELY needed another gear. The motor revved like 6grand at 55mph and was tiresome,, but I wasn’t about to complain, it was some fun riding. I’ve ridden a lot of bikes, Honda did some different things with motorcycles, I wasn’t crazy about this one.
You must not have had the same CX500C I owned. It was the most comfortable bike I every owned, the handling was crappy, not because of the shaft drive jacking the rear end, but because of the spaghetti like front end. As far as the revving goes, you’re clutch must have been slipping. Mine cruised at 65 comfortably and I got about 40 mpg. The tank was too small, so the max range was about 120 miles, but who want to ride for 2 hours without stretching your legs? Of course when driving across country on it, there where times when I wished it had a 5 gallon tank because in a lot of places towns are 120 miles apart and you get a little puckered at 115 miles and no town is in sight.
The CX650 has a much more robust front end and better shocks on the back too, so handling should be decent, the only reason it might be sketchy would be from when the turbo kicks in. Still, I would own one, but this example is WAAAY overpriced.
Well I’m an average person an know what a turbo does an to say they’re only for wide open throttle is completely wrong. Turbos start to build boost as soon as you crack the throttle…the more the revs rise, the more boost. Diesel trucks care about torque, boost builds torque and Hp…Torque gets you moving and pull heavy loads which is what trucking is all about. The reason turbos where put on cars and bikes was to give the performance of a larger ci motor while still having the benefit of the better fuel milage and weight advantage a smaller ci motor provided. not an unnecessary gee-gaw
Ridiculously overpriced.
Might be a nice bike, but maybe will bring $11-12K if it is ready to ride.
There are far more collectible/popular bikes out there for $20K.
scotty the correct number of cars and bikes is the number you have, plus one more.
I’ve owned over a dozen CX500’s and rode only one, an ugh, 1st model year 1978. I’ve owned only one ’83 CX650 Custom but no turbos. Who needs a turbo anyway when you’ve got 4 RD Yamaha rockets?
100hp is a real sweet spot for a bike.
and the stock CX’s performed better than the Turbos anyway for normal riding.
My next door neighbor tried being a salesguy at a Honda dealer. Someone came in specifically to look at one of these. The fellow spooled up the turbo, lost control of the bike, and didn’t make it out of the parking lot. Ran right into a parked shop truck. That was the end of his trial at sales.
Thank goodness he didn’t try the H1 from last week
I know a guy with a turbo’ed 79 CBX. The motor has the best of everything, and it has a Holley four barrel. Mine is a 79 also, stock with a 6 into 6 header and it is a rocket. His is a cruise missile.
I have a very nice 82 CX500 turbo with about 12 000 miles! Don’t see a way to post a picture on here!
Honda CBX with a Mister Turbo. Hang on!
I started riding on a CX500 Deluxe and it was your pretty standard UJM. The D was comfortable and easy to ride and was a great starter bike. The non-turbos have become a bit of a cult classic over the years. I also owned 2 CX500 Turbos and it’s pretty hard to compare the 2 because they were quite different. Loved my CX Turbos. They were so quirky and so fun to ride. Turbo hit like the Millennium Falcon going to light speed. Way ahead of it’s time but too weird for most folks. I’d love to have another but not for $20k.
Mark, the UJM acronym was referred to the 4 cylinder bikes. Every Japanese bike manufacturer had them. The CX was patterned after Moto Guzzi V twins. So it didn’t and the original Yamaha XS 750-850 were 3 cylinder machines like the Laverdas. I didn’t consider those to be UJMs.
Agree completely! I too presently have a CX500T and like you stated there was a lot of lag to the turbo, but when it kicked in, hold on tight! I always attributed that to the fact that this was the first production bike with both fuel injection and turbocharging. The fuel mapping was not very refined. The CX650T was much more refined in that respect. I would love to own this example, but the price is waaaaaaay out there!
I never rode a turbocharged bike but a friend had a Kawasaki two stroke triple that was pretty wicked to ride.
I would rather have one of these:
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/the-honda-cbx-1000-was-an-80s-6-cylinder-superbike/?amp
I have always had a thing for big bore Honda of the late 70’s and early 80’s.
Thanks for the link.
I have an 81 CBX, a fun cruiser.
For me motorcycles are simple transportation, ownership, maintenance and repair.
This Honda is attractive styling and manageable weight/handling. The turbo compromises my other preferences. Japanese bikes had/have a niche with transverse inline fours. I can get everything I like in that configuration. The rest are curious demonstrations of capability. “We did it because we could”.
My experience is HONDA doesn’t give any info on production numbers
Anyone ever hear of Honda 750 turbo had two of them twenty years ago from a school shop? Sold to a guy in Ireland, bet that they were VERY rare as I don’t believe they were ever sold because of new tariffs that year. The two I had clearly displayed 750 Turbo on them.
At $20,000 it’s way overpriced. If a person is interested in a vintage Japanese
motorcycle there are a lot good buys out there for a lot less money.
I have owned 148 motorcycles over the last 53 years. 10 of them were CX Turbos. 6 CX 500’s and 4 CX 650 Turbos.
My last CX650T sold through Bring a Trailer to the Audrain Museum in Road Island. It only had 12,510 miles on it and it brought pretty near the $20k that they are asking for this one. They really only sold about 419 of the CX 650T’s the balance of them were given to trade and technical schools by Honda to show them what their future bikes were going to be about, high powered small displacement bikes. Harley Davidson had complained to Washington about the large displacement Japanese bikes killing their sales so Washington out a tariff on all Japanese bikes over 700cc. Honda’s answer was the CX Turbos.
The CX 500T and the CX650T were like night and day to ride. The Turbo lag was almost gone on the 650 compared to the 500.
A better front end and many other improvements made the 1983 CX650 Turbo a blast to drive. Back in the day they called me Turbo Bob because I had factory turbo bikes from all 4 Japanese manufacturers.
The Honda Cx650T was the best all around, smooth and comfortable but the Kawasaki GPZ 750 Turbo was like being on a jet when the boost came up. Very fast but the front end tended to flex when ridden hard in the corners. The Seca 650 Turbo was carbureted and just did not have the torque and speed that the others with fuel injection had.
I was blessed to have had these turbocharged beauties and they were a blast to ride but still don’t compare to the technology and refinement that modern bikes have.
Funny you say that Robert. We used to talk about how “advanced” our CX Turbo’s were and that was true at the time. I (and I’m guessing we) could not imagine the tech we have today.