The young guy on the modern 125cc sport bike didn’t back off the throttle as he went screaming past me and the stationary CB72 where we sat in a lay-by on a busy dual carriageway. He barely gave the Honda a second glance, and if he had done he probably wouldn’t have been impressed. To him this would just have been some old bike whose rider was jumping up and down on its kickstarter in an attempt to get it running.
Moments later the Honda’s motor fired up, and I roared off in pursuit, with a half-formed plan to catch the newer bike and restore the elderly twin’s honour. It was no use; he’d long since disappeared into the distance. But if ever there has been a small-capacity bike that deserves respect from a modern-day rider, especially a young guy in a hurry, it’s the CB72.
Honda’s 247cc parallel twin from the 1960s might not look fast and exciting in comparison with a modern sports model, especially if you’re a teenager. But the CB72 was the best small-capacity sports bike of its day. And more than 60 years later it is rubbing shoulders with the likes of the huge-selling Super Cub and CB750 superbike as one of the most significant models Honda has ever built.
The CB72’s humped, chrome-plated tank with its rubber knee-pads looks quaintly dated now, but when the twin reached export markets in the early ’60s, its style and specification were a big step forward. This was a Japanese machine with enough speed and street cred to appeal strongly to performance-hungry Western enthusiasts. It was the model that proved Honda was getting serious.
Japan’s biggest bike firm had already begun making a name for itself on the world’s racetracks. In 1961, just two years after Honda’s first, exploratory attempt at the Isle of Man TT, factory riders Mike Hailwood and Australian ace Tom Phillis won the 250cc and 125cc world championships. The following season Honda retained both, through Jim Redman of Rhodesia and Swiss star Luigi Taveri, with Redman adding the 350cc title for good measure.
But although Honda’s twin-cylinder racers, inspired by the German NSUs that had impressed Soichiro Honda during his earlier TT visit, were fast and competitive, the firm’s roadsters had lagged behind. Production models such as the 250cc C71, which became the first Honda twin seen in Europe when it arrived in 1959, were well-engineered and reliable. But with its huge mudguards, pressed-steel frame, leading-link forks, and rectangular-section shocks, the C71 was as homely as it was heavy. It was also slow, and didn’t handle particularly well.
The CB72 – known as the Hawk in the US and the Dream Super Sport in the UK – was very different. This was the sporty version of the year’s three-model 250cc range, which also consisted of the basic C72 and dual-purpose CS72. It had low, flat handlebars, a relatively thinly padded dual-seat, and an innovative instrument panel incorporating a speedometer and rev-counter whose needles rotated in opposite directions. There was even a degree of adjustability in its footrests, which were respectably high and rearset.
All three 1960 models retained the previous year’s SOHC engine layout, plus dimensions of 54mm x 54mm and a switch from dry- to wet-sump lubrication. In addition, the CB72 had a 180-degree crankshaft instead of the C72’s British-style 360-degree set-up. It also had twin carbs instead of just one, and a higher 9.5:1 compression ratio that helped increase maximum output by 4bhp to 24bhp at 9000rpm.
The CB72’s chassis changes were even more important. In place of the pressed-steel frame retained by the C72, the sports model had a new and more rigid construction, based on that of Honda’s works racers, combining a tubular steel main spine with short twin downtubes leading to the cylinder head. The old-style leading-link front suspension was replaced by telescopics, with a pair of conventional round-section shocks at the rear. The front brake was of high spec: a finned, eight-inch-diameter twin-leading-shoe drum.
That all gave the CB72 a much more racy and modern look, and riding it did not disappoint. As US magazine Cycle World put it at the time, “Rider position is of necessity very ‘Mike Hailwood’ and although it looks ferociously uncomfortable for touring, the controls and the seat are positioned in such a way that it is, in fact, quite good. In any case, the combination makes the rider feel as though he is very much a part of the machine – and it is fun to drop into a crouch and bare your teeth at other riders as you go by.”
Such aggressive behaviour came naturally to the rider of a CB72, as I soon discovered after setting off on this very original machine. With 13,000 miles on the clock, the 1967-registered bike looked in good, unrestored condition. Its distinctive speedometer’s face was slightly faded, and the chrome and paintwork had a few minor marks and rust spots, but generally the Honda had aged well.
It hadn’t been ridden for some time, though, which explained its reluctance to start on the button (due to a flat battery), and its slightly rough low-rev running, which could have been due to a problem with the carbs. But the air-cooled motor generally fired up easily enough after a few leaps on the unusual kickstarter, which swung forward rather than backward when I applied my boot to it.
Once under way the Honda soon confirmed that its character was much as you’d expect from the sporty riding position and the 9000rpm redline. Revved hard, the CB72 performed well enough to make me realise why it had so impressed testers and owners alike back in the early ’60s. There was a flat spot at about 4500rpm, before the motor got into its stride, revving smoothly with a dull drone from the low-set twin pipes.
Soon I was barrelling along at 70mph, leant comfortably forward into the breeze, and with plenty of speed in hand. At that speed the engine wasn’t even particularly stressed, because top gear in the four-speed box was quite tall. The gap between the top two ratios necessitated an occasional tread down into third on uphill stretches, prompting some contemporary testers to suggest that the bike would have been improved by a five-speed box.
But they certainly didn’t complain about the CB72’s performance. In the UK, The Motor Cycle magazine speed-tested it at an average of 89mph, with a one-way best of 91mph, and said: “The Dream Super Sport is far and away the fastest production two-fifty yet tested. It would hold 70–75mph for the entire length of the M1 motorway with the rider normally seated.” That was impressive stuff, albeit less so than it would be now, because in 1961 the newly opened M1 was only 60 miles long.
Handling was good, too, in contrast to that of the CB72’s heavier and less well-equipped forebears. Cycle World described the Honda as “stable and fast-cornering,” adding that “Fork angle, trail, spring rates and damper settings are near-perfect, and even a fairly timid rider will find it very natural to ride faster and lean over farther than is his habit to do.”
I can’t say the Honda inspired me to ride harder than normal, but it did go round corners pretty well. Its suspension was reasonably firm and well-damped, even at the rear where the shocks didn’t make me want to replace them with a pair of Girling units, as some hard-riding owners did. At 153kg dry, the CB72 was light even by modern standards, and it was stable enough to encourage me to flick it around.
The only aspect of the chassis that disappointed was the twin-leading-shoe front drum brake, which was regarded as excellent in its day, but in this bike’s case was rather spongy and ineffective. New and freshly set-up shoes would doubtless have helped. At least the lack of stopping power meant there was no danger of overwhelming the skinny front Avon tyre.
Back in the early 1960s, the Honda impressed not only with its speed and handling but with its quality and reliability. As The Motor Cycle put it, “Have racing successes any bearing on production quality? Does racing really improve the breed? That the answer to both these questions is a decided ‘yes’ is immediately obvious! That a machine of such full blooded performance should at the same time be so unobtrusive and docile reflects tremendous credit on a firm founded only 13 years ago.”
Some lingering anti-Japanese prejudice combined with a high price to ensure that the CB72 didn’t sell in huge numbers, especially in Europe. But the twin was much loved by its owners, and it made a vivid and lasting impression. Most importantly, the CB72 proved that Honda could produce fast, fine-handling, stylish bikes that appealed to enthusiasts all around the world. Motorcycling would never be quite the same again.
