Finding spares isn’t an issue.Īccording to the seller’s Craigslist ad, that’s how this machine came to be. Nevertheless, there are still many of these bikes around. Or, hacked up by hipsters turned into cafe racers. The 350 engine didn’t have the longevity of its bigger counterparts from Honda, and many of these machines were hammered on-track in vintage racing, or just beat to death through a life of constant neglect. That ammo can pannier might work for the Lord Humungus, but the faux post-apocalyptic look might not suit most vintage bike owners. Ask older motorcyclists, and many of them have tales of their long-distance adventures on these bikes.
The 350 was plenty of bike for many riders, who were used to even wimpier machines from Italy and Japan.
People learned to ride on them before moving on to bigger bikes … or maybe they didn’t move on.
#HONDA CL350 SCRAMBLER SERIES#
Those numbers are almost unthinkable today, and while the CB750, Z1900 and similar models get all the big press today, it’s no exaggeration to say Honda’s 350 series was one of the most significant lines to ever be imported to the US and Canada. Honda allegedly sold 600,000 of its various CB350-derived models in North America between 19. The combination of performance, pricing and reliability was a recipe for instant success. It didn’t leak oil everywhere like its counterparts from the Brit market, while still making what was considered reasonable horsepower. The air-cooled twin actually had 324 cc displacement, with five-speed transmission. You should be able to handle secondary roads just fine, but faster superslab, especially the stuff out west, might not be too pleasant. That cool high-pipe exhaust was heavy, raised the center of gravity, and sucked power out of the engine. The C元50 only made about 33 horsepower, even less than the CB350, which had the exact same engine. You probably wouldn’t get all excited about taking it out on the highway. Hey kids, that’s a drum brake, a primitive ABS device! Photo: Craigslist Of course, comparison to any modern dual sport or dirt bike will leave the 350 looking silly, but you should be able to tootle along at sensible speeds on gravel roads. It made sense much of the original Baja scene had been pioneered on the earlier, similar Honda CL72, by Billy Robertson Jr. In fact, a much-modified C元50 won the second NORRAD Baja 1000 race, piloted by Larry Bergquist and Gary Preston. The Honda didn’t look so bad against that standard.
But remember that although the C元50 was no lightweight, many offroad racers were still piloting massive Brit desert sleds in the late ’60s and early ’70s. It was a street scrambler, not designed for off-road racing. However, the C元50 was reasonably well set-up for a bike of its era, and even now, it should function fairly well as an all-round street bike, considering its vintage. Most of the rest of the package (hacked fenders, tiny headlight, etc.) is a simple cosmetic change, and lots of those tweaks actually make the bike a worse machine in the real world, not better. Everyone’s hacking up vintage bikes to make abominable “customs” that really amount to nothing more than a set of dirt bike handlebars and knobby tires. Photo: CraigslistĪ Honda C元50 has always been somewhat desirable, but maybe even more so these days, thanks to the vintage scrambler craze. Those are new mufflers, but the headers are scabby-looking.
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