First Impressions

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO RIDE THE VERY FIRST HONDA VF750F INTERCEPTOR ON THE STREET?

Mark Lindemann

Can it really be 31 years ago? It seems like yesterday. Ronald Reagan's in the White House, and I'm in the Cycle magazine garage at 780-A Lakefield Road, where I worked as an editor. The shop rat’s just unloaded a brand-new Honda VF750F Interceptor from the van. The staff stands around, taking it all in: The perimeter frame.

The 16-inch front wheel. The V-4 engine. What to make of this alien departure from the familiar Universal Japanese Motorcycle concept?

Amere month before, we’d tested the 1983 Honda CB1100F. An awesome sportbike, yet a couple of weeks later it represents the end of the UJM line (aircooled transverse fours, double-cradle steel-tube frames, twin shocks).

Editor Phil Schilling straps on a helmet and goes for the first ride. He returns, wordlessly hands the key to Don Phillipson, and walks back to his office. What’s up?

Phillipson returns and proves a bit more vocal. “It’s incredible,” he says. “Wait’ll you ride it.” Another rider gets on. And then it’s my turn.

Incredible proved an apt choice of words.

Cycle’s road tests were a compendium of all the staff’s objective testing and riding impressions, so we spent plenty of time discussing exactly what made this first Interceptor so good. And we were a cynical lot—none of us cared one whit what name was on the tank or what the engine configuration was—personally, I just wanted to go fast on a machine that worked better than anything else yet didn’t actively try to kill me when things went wrong. The Interceptor’s road test ran on for nine pages, accompanied by a technical discussion (by Kevin Cameron) that went on for another nine. A quote: “There’s nothing like perfect teamwork...[and] the Interceptor is this kind of partner. As a sport bike it’s nearly perfect—always there, more than ready, anticipating your every move.”

What do I remember most about the first VF750F? Three principal qualities.

I charge into a turn, slam on the brakes, wobble around for a while, discover the exit, stand the bike up, pull the trigger, and repeat. Yet even with such a hamfisted pilot, the Interceptor was precise and, more important, forgiving. Second,

I remember its powerband: wide, full of torque, and available. I underscore that last point because our first VF dyno’d 77 hp at 10,000 rpm. Long ago I discovered that I only have about

“THERE’S NOTHING LIKE PERFECT TEAMWORK...[AND] THE INTERCEPTOR IS THIS KIND OF PARTNER. AS A SPORT BIKE IT’S NEARLY PERFECT-ALWAYS THERE, MORE THAN READY, ANTICIPATING YOUR EVERY MOVE.”

Cycle, May 1983

75 hp of talent, and it’s challenging for me to keep a bike revving into the stratosphere. Such modest horsepower and a redline that barely cracked 10 grand seem quaint today, but for mere mortals the Interceptor was approachable and extraordinarily userfriendly, a term that hadn’t entered our vocabulary yet. Prior to this I’d just presumed that an evil personality or compromised ergonomics were the price of speed and performance.

Third, I remember how broad the Interceptor’s capabilities were. This was perhaps the real Interceptor gift, a characteristic that remained an Interceptor virtue in subsequent generations to varying degrees. The 1983 vintage was an excellent daylong ride, yet as a sportbike it was second to none, blasting through the quarter-mile deep into the 11s, tearing up the track in the hands of riders like one youngster named Freddie Spencer.

Another quote: “In the last 10 years we’ve seen only a handful of bikes that feel as well integrated and give the kind of confidence the Honda inspires. A rider doesn’t simply operate the VF; rather, he works with it and it works with him in perfect harmony.”

And then the closing lines for that Cycle road test: “Imagine, if you will, a magic mirror that takes your image, amplifies the good points, masks the shortcomings, and reflects back a largerthan-life portrait. That, in a nutshell, is what the VF750F does to a motorcyclist. The Interceptor may not really be magic, but it enhances and flatters your riding

abilities so much that you’ll swear it is.” Cycle World was even more succinct in its last line of a 750 shootout comparing the VF750F, the Kawasaki GPZ750, and the Suzuki GS750E: “The Interceptor wins.” The Interceptor was eye opening for me in a way no other bike had been up to that point, and few have been since. Don’t get me wrong—today’s sportbikes are better in every way than the 1983 Interceptor. But few of them offer such a large margin of improvement over the competition in so many areas as the original VF750F did, as well as so much technical innovation. And that’s what makes the first Interceptor so memorable.

Talk about a charmed life: Lindemann, author o/Cycle World’s Total Motorcycling Manual, has ridden every generation of the VF/Interceptor/VFR series since the bike’s 1983 inception.