Letter From Japan

LETTER FROM Japan

Africa Twin

All the Japanese companies are continuing to produce very special motorcycles for special markets. Honda's latest is for Europe only, and is a near-ultimate Paris-Dakar-style profile machine: the Africa Twin. Based loosely on the XLV600 TransAlp (available in Canada and Europe, but not the U.S.), this new 650 V-Twin offers a closer resemblance to the works Honda NXR780

that has won the last two Paris-Dakar races. Compared to the TransAip, the Africa Twin offers more of everything: more power (56 bhp), more suspen sion (43mm front fork with 9. 1 inches of travel; an aluminum swingarm

with 8.3 inches), and more fuel capacity (6.6 gallons). But while Honda hints that the Africa Twin might make an ideal privateer Paris-Dakar racer, far more will end up patrolling the streets of Milan and Paris, their riders only dreaming of Africa.

Japanese motorcycle production falls

Last year, Japanese motorcycle production totaled 2,630,000 bikes, a fall of 22.6 percent from the previous year. This was only partially offset by an increase in “KD sets’’ (knock-down motorcycle sets for export assembly), which were up 9.7 percent to 2,060,000. The vast majority of these KD sets were for mopeds and machines under 125cc.

Of total motorcycle production, 457,000 machines were sent to Europe (up 5.5 percent), while exports to America declined 41.3 percent to 317,000.

The decline in exports to America has many causes, certainly among them the exchange-rate fluctuations that have rapiuly increased the price of Japanese motorcycles in the U.S.

Kengo Yagawa