World's greatest bikes #6: Honda RC30

No production bike has had a more profound impact on the racing world than the Honda VFR750R RC30.

A bold claim, maybe, but where Ducati’s homologation specials weren’t actually able to be converted into racers (you needed a full factory-built race bike to take to the track), you could genuinely nip to your local Honda dealer, slap down £8499 for an RC30 and (after getting it tuned) take it racing – and win on the world scene.

Launched in Japan in 1987, the RC30 was effectively the road-going version of HRC’s exotic RVF750 endurance racer. Built by one of three four-man teams within HRC at a maximum rate of 60 a week, the RC30 was designed to allow Honda to enter the new World Superbike series and only 1000 were initially made to meet homologation rules (with a further 2000 in 1988).

Yet, so successful was the RC30 that Honda went on to build 4708 before production stopped in 1990. What was the RC30’s secret? A moneyno-object approach to design…