If you were of a certain age in the 1980s, you likely poked fun at the fads, or you jumped in with both feet and followed them. One of them was turbocharging almost anything and everything, including hairstyles and even motorcycles. This 1982 Honda CX500 Turbo is listed here on Facebook Marketplace in Appleton, Wisconsin, and they’re asking $4,000. Here is the original listing, and thanks to Lothar… of the Hill People for the tip!
Four grand for a CX500 Turbo?! YES. Hagerty’s at $6,600 for a #3 good example and $12,700 for a #2 excellent example. They can and do sell for more than that, but this one has a few needs (don’t we all?). The seller says it has a bad injector (don’t we all?), and it’s missing a few small parts, although they don’t list those. I’m assuming hand grips are one of those things, and a cracked tailpiece, etc.
Honda offered the CX500 Turbo for the 1982 model year, and that’s it. Other manufacturers made turbo motorcycles, and Kawasaki is generally credited as having the first “semi-production” turbo model in 1978. Yamaha offered the XJ650 Seca Turbo in 1982, with Suzuki and Kawasaki following shortly. Honda followed up the 500 Turbo in 1983 with the CX650 Turbo, but this genre never really caught on, unlike supercharging. Thankfully, 1980s hairstyles never caught on either. Or pushing up your sleeves, or acid-wash jeans, leg warmers, fanny packs, etc.
I’ve been following/watching a Wisconsin guy named Joe Weber on his YouTube channel, 2Vintage, for about a decade, and it’s an incredibly fun place to spend some time. He buys old motorcycles, ATVs, snowmobiles, etc., in non-running condition, and goes through them methodically to get them working again. 99 times out of 100, he gets them running by the end of the video. It would be fun to see him tackle this CX500 Turbo.
The engine is Honda’s 497-cc OHV turbocharged, four-stroke, water-cooled V-twin with 82 horsepower and 58 lb-ft of torque when it’s running. It’s backed by a 5-speed manual transmission sending power to the rear wheel through a shaft drive. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more 1980s-looking motorcycle than this. At $4,000, this one is probably worth a gamble as they can be worth triple that easily, but can you get it back in perfect condition again?
It should come as no surprise, I poked fun rather than follow kooky trends, didn’t get me anywhere. We’ve seen 3 of these in the past couple years,( all from Jeff) this is the 1st from SG. Before I go any further, let it be known, I like ALL motorcycles, some more than others, others I plain didn’t care for. The CX500 is one I didn’t care for. Before coming to Co. I spent a summer in Upstate NY, and the guy I stayed with had a CX 500 Silver Wing. I was grateful he let me ride that thing all over the Catskills, but a poorer bike, I don’t think I ever rode. It handled funky, poor rider position, iffy brakes, shaft drive quirks, engine buzzed like 7 grand was 65mph, and certainly nothing I would buy. I can’t imagine what a “hairdryer” would do, for a 500, it had plenty of steam, and again, ( and again) you want half a loaf of bread, here you go, but give me that Z1 any day! :0
You better know how to ride if you saddle up a big cc turbo bike 🏍
I would find the cx650 instead. This is nice. But, the bugs were worked out on the cx650. Cool concept.
These really made the bike magazines sit up and take notice-especially when the bigger 650 came out to counter the competition from Yamaha (Seca 650-looked like seen on Battlestar Galactica) the Suzuki XN85 (more sci-fi cool designs) and the King of the Stock Turbo Bikes the GPZ750 Turbo about 115 HP IIRC.
All were cool engineering flagships, all were scary fast and all were scary to ride on a twisty road in the day!