Latest Posts:
Asphalt & Rubber
Tag

RC213V-S

Browsing
Bikes

Here is the $184,000 Honda RC213V-S Street Bike

By 118 Comments

Honda has finally debuted its “absolute MotoGP machine for the street” – the highly anticipated and hyped Honda RC213V-S. First off, the rumors are true: this is not going to be an affordable motorcycle.

The 2016 Honda RC213V-S will cost $184,000 in the USA, while Europeans will get stuck with a €188,ooo sticker price (¥21,900,000 in Japan & $244,000 in Australia). In order to buy an RC213V-S, customers must register on a special website, which will open on July 16th.

Each RC213V-S street bike will be hand-built at Honda’s Kumamoto factory, at the pace of roughly one motorcycle per day. For those inclined to doing the math, we’ll save you the trouble…fewer than 300 units will be made, with that number likely closer to 200.

The 2016 Honda RC213V-S will be available in two colors: the HRC Tricolor or plain-jane carbon fiber (our pick). Both colors have carbon fiber fairings, and come with coil spring valves (not pneumatic valves, like on the race bikes). Other changes from the racing machines include the gearbox, tires, brakes, and maximum steering angle.

As far as electronics go, there are five rider modes, a sophisticated traction control system, along with engine braking control, a quickshifter, and an inertial measurement unit (IMU).

Honda says that the RC213V-S tips the scales at a claimed 170kg dry weight (188kg wet in Europe, 190kg wet in the USA), which isn’t exactly mind-blowingly light. For example, the Ducati 1199 Superleggera weighs 155kg dry and 178kg wet.

For track riders, there is a “sport kit” that will bring the bike to even closer spec to the racing machines. It includes a new ECU, revised ram-air tubes, and of course a racing exhaust system. This kit drops the dry weight to 165kg (177kg wet), but it oddly won’t be available to USA market machines…and that’s an important fact to remember.

In the US market, the Honda RC213V-S will be tuned for 101hp at 8,000 rpm (66 lbs•ft of torque) — a figure the bike will be stuck at, since the sport kit is not available to the US market.

In Europe and Australia, the RC213V-S will make a still disappointing 157hp at the 11,000 rpm-spinning crank, but with the sports kit installed, that figure will get bumped to over 210hp at 13,000 rpm. Peak torque is set at 75 lbs•ft at 10,500 rpm, with the sports kit lifting that figure to over 87 lbs•ft.

Keep Reading
By
Bikes

Live Stream: Watch the Honda RC213V-S Debut in Spain

By 5 Comments

The final production version of the Honda RC213V-S is set to debut in less than 24 hours, at a special press event at the Catalan GP. In case you happen not to be in the Barcelona area tomorrow, Honda has set up a live feed of the event (after the jump).

Still playing coy, all that Honda will say is that the launch will be “the absolute MotoGP machine for the street” – though, it is perhaps the worst kept secret in the motorcycle industry.

Casey Stoner is expected to be on-hand as well, giving the Catalans the treat of a parade lap on the €100,000+ Honda RC213V-S.

We’ll have photos and all the details for you once the Honda RC213V-S debuts, so check back tomorrow at 2am Pacific Time, 5am Eastern Time.

Keep Reading
By
Bikes

Honda RC213V-S Spotted on the Road

By 38 Comments

All signs are pointing to the Honda RC213V-S road bike debuting the Thursday ahead of the Catalan GP; and if you believe the rumors, Casey Stoner himself will parade the MotoGP-inspired hyperbike around the Spanish track.

Shown above, with Honda test ride Hiroshi Aoyama at the controls, the Honda RC213V-S has been seen on the road, in its final trim. The bike has also been on display in Thailand this past week, helping fuel its official launch in Spain.

This means that in just a week’s time, we should finally know all the details about the RC213V-s. Expected to cost north of €100,000, the hand-built street bikes will be very special machines, with production likely limited to how quickly Honda can make the motorcycles.

Keep Reading
By
Bikes

Honda RC213V-S To Be Officially Official on June 11th?

By 18 Comments

French-speaking publications are letting slip that Honda has a media event planned June 11th for the Honda RC213V-S — where it is expected that the MotoGP-derived street bike will be finally put forth in its production form.

Readers will remember that Honda unveiled the RC213V-S as a “prototype” at the 2014 EICMA show. Honda made the same move with the “True Adventure” prototype, which we knew at the time to be the new Honda Africa Twin adventure-touring machine.

With the Africa Twin now officially a 2016 model according to Honda, we wait for Big Red to do the same with the RC213V-S.

Keep Reading
By
Bikes

Report: Honda RC213V-S Priced at ¥20 Million

By 45 Comments

According to a report made by The Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s second largest daily newspaper, Honda has green-lit the RC213V-S project, with a price tag of 20 million yen — roughly $170,000 USD.

The Honda RC213V-S debuted at the 2014 EICMA show, and was as advertised: a MotoGP race bike with lights and mirrors added to it.

Honda teased show-goers and the media by say that the RC213V-S model was only a prototype, adding more fuel to the speculation regarding whether the Japanese firm would actually produce the long-awaited model.

Keep Reading
By
Bikes

Up-Close with the Honda RC213V-S Prototype

By 64 Comments

I can’t decide whether to be elated or disappointed over the Honda RC213V-S prototype, which was debuted this week at the EICMA show in Milan, Italy. On the one hand, the RC213V-S lived up to the hype…literally a MotoGP race bike with lights, mirrors, turn signals, and a license plate.

On the other hand, for all the waiting and consternation from Honda, what they brought to Milan was a fairly derivative and obvious design.

Rumors of a true MotoGP-derived sport bike from Honda have been circling for several years now (closer to a decade, if you’re a reader of MCN), and the project borrows the ethos found in the Ducati Desmosedici RR project, another exclusive GP-bike-for-the-street motorcycle.

Where Ducati took inspiration from its MotoGP program, kept the basic elements found there, and created an entirely new machine, the Honda RC213V-S prototype is quite the opposite.

Honda has released zero, and I mean zero, information about the RC213V-S project, but it would not surprise me in the least if each bike was an ex-race bike with lights slapped onto it, as it was put out to pasture so-to-speak.

That might be an intriguing proposition, actually, but the point is that for all the delay and mystery around the RC213V-S, it’s surprising that the finished (or near-finished) product is such an obvious one. It borders on being the easy way out of a two-wheeled problem.

Keep Reading
By
Bikes

Honda RC213V-S Street Bike Prototype Unveiled

By 73 Comments

Perhaps the most highly anticipated machine at the EICMA show, Honda has finally debuted its road-going MotoGP bike, dubbed the Honda RC213V-S.

Still officially considered a prototype (along with the Honda Africa Twin off-road machine), the RC213V-s is essentially what you would imagine, an RC213V MotoGP bike with lights.

Brought onto the EICMA stage by Marc Marquez, the RC213V-S is a stunner in its pure carbon fairings, but we think the Japanese flag livery on the static machine takes the cake.

Honda isn’t talking specs at this time, and hopefully we will know more by the time the Tokyo Motor Show rolls around. So, we’ll just have to drool over these photos until then. Check them out, after the jump.

Keep Reading
By
Bikes

Honda Trademarks “RC213V-S” in Europe

By 5 Comments

Adding more fuel to the fire, concerning Honda’s long-awaited V4 production superbike, the Japanese manufacturer has registered the trademark “RC213V-S” with the European Union.

As MotoGP fans should already know, next year’s production race bike will be called the Honda RC213V-RS, which should make the more plain “S” designation sound suspiciously like a street-going model.

Not exactly the most glamorous name for a road bike, especially one of this stature, one could not fault Honda for wanting to draw a link between the production model and its GP-racing lineage.

Keep Reading
By