Those "Powerful" Bikes They Sell in Japan

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Those "Powerful" Bikes They Sell in Japan

Last update: August 8, 2002

Japanese Motorcycle Manufacturers' Japanese Web Sites

In my post critical of MSF, " The Truth Is Stranger Than...," I state that the Japanese motorcycle manufacturers voluntarily put the limit on the maximum horsepower and the top speed on ALL motorcycles they manufacture for the Japanese domestic market. The maximum horsepower and the top speed they allow is 100 ps and 111.8 mph respectively.

Some people have asked for hard evidence. I provide links to the Japanese motorcycle manufacturers' Japanese web sites. Even though the text is in Japanese, most of specification numbers are recognizable. If you can see rather tepid horsepower for Japan's domestic models, you can conclude that their top speed must be considerably lower than that of U.S. models.

The following links connect you to four Japanese motorcycle manufacturers' Japanese web sites. If you don't have a Japanese character set installed on your computer, you won't be able to see Japanese characters displayed correctly on your screen, but you can still see images and numbers at these sites. (Some scientific units may not show up correctly if you don't have a Japanese character set installed.)

If you see a dialog box like the one on the right asking you to install a Japanese language pack on your computer, ignore it. You can proceed without any adverse effects on your computer by pressing the [cancel] button.

If you like, you can play around with the Theoretical Maximum Speed Calculator by plugging in numbers you find at these sites. However, remember that the calculator calculates the maximum speed attainable from a combination of gear reduction ratios of a bike. Since it does not take into its consideration the effect of horsepower, the results you get may be closer to those of the bikes not altered to have the restricted lower horsepower.

Honda's Japanese Web Site
Click above to go to their line-up page. Select a model. When the main page for the model shows up, select the first item of the list in the left-most column. The spec page will appear. In the case of the CBR954RR, the 18th and 19th items on the page are the Maximum Horsepower and Torque for the model, respectively. (Gold Wing's 116 ps and VTX's 102 ps are exceptions. They are actually foreign markets models imported back into Japan.)

Yamaha's Japanese Web Site
Click above to go to their home page. Click on [Road & Trail]. Select a model. When the main page for the model shows up, click the 5th, 6th, or 7th button from the top on the left similar to the button below. The spec table will appear.

Suzuki's Japanese Web Site
Click above to go to their road-sport line-up page. Select a model. When the main page for the model shows up, look for a button similar to one of the two below and click it. The spec table will appear.

Kawasaki's Japanese Web Site
Click above to go to their line-up page. Select a model. When the main page for the model shows up, click on [SPEC SHEET]. The spec page will appear.