Premier Touring Bike: The Real Story Behind The Honda Gold Wing (First Gen)

Key Takeaways

• The Honda Gold Wing is a dominant force in the touring motorcycle segment, with over 640,000 units sold and a 50th birthday coming up in October 2024.
• The Gold Wing was initially intended to be a high-performance superbike but evolved into a unique and innovative touring motorcycle with a water-cooled flat-six engine and shaft drive.
• The Gold Wing’s transition to a touring champion was driven by American riders recognizing its potential and the aftermarket industry providing accessories like fairings, windshields, and saddlebags.

The Honda Goldwing is arguably the greatest touring motorcycle and has dominated that segment for over forty years. October 2024 will be the Honda Gold Wing’s 50th birthday. Not many motorcycles have a trunk, but the Gold Wing does. Not many bikes have sold over 640,000 units, but the Gold Wing has. Not many motorcycle models have existed for half a century, but the Gold Wing will be next year.

The Winnebago on two wheels is the king of touring, but it did not even start its life as a tourer. It was supposed to be the next hot superbike. So where did today’s super touring, six-cylinder 1800cc Honda Gold Wing come from? Why was it built? How did Honda go from the world-beating air-cooled inline four to a liquid-cooled boxer-four, and later, six cylinders?

Here’s Why The Honda Gold Wing Was Developed

In 1969, Honda broke motorcycling with its revolutionary CB750. The air-cooled inline four was better than anything else made then. The CB750 was faster, lighter, and more agile than anything that came close. By 1972, this bike was threatened on all sides. Suzuki launched the G750, a water-cooled two-stroke with similar power, while Kawasaki upped the game with its 900cc Z1.

Honda responded by playing a longer game. It created its first R&D division, led by Soichiro Irimajiri, one of the high-revving small five and six-cylinder racers of the ’60s. He was also involved in Honda’s burgeoning car development division. This division’s task was to create Honda’s new flagship motorcycle.

Molding The Gold Wing

Honda’s engineers had the freedom to create first and then modify their creations for practical application. Irimajiri already had a reputation as an innovator. He knew it was not enough to build a bigger inline-four. It had to be something completely different. And it was.

The prototype was called the M1, later Project 371. It was super fast and radically different from anything Honda or anyone else had done by then. The 1,470cc displacement was more than double that of the CB750, and it had two extra cylinders. The horizontally opposed flat-six was water-cooled, the first Japanese four-stroke to be. Instead of a chain drive, it had a final shaft drive.

Instead of chasing just horsepower, the M1’s engine was designed to give loads of torque over a broad rev range as well. The result was 80hp at 6:700rpm. Top speed was 140mph. The engine layout meant a very low center of gravity. However, the engine plus gearbox was impossibly long, forcing the rider into a cramped position.

The M1 set the pattern for the first Gold Wing and the generation that came after it. But first, they had to turn it into a practical, salable motorcycle.

The Gold Wing Is Created

The M1 prototype was a monster. It was also a visionary design that would influence the Gold Wing half a century later. But back then, Honda needed to calm the beast down, smooth out the edges, and turn it from a concept to a practical motorcycle. At that stage, the goal was still to create the next flagship performance motorcycle.

The first step was to scale the engine down. They lost two pots and a third of the cubes, ending up with a four-cylinder, 999cc. Cylinder blocks and crankcase were integral, and the transmission was under the crankcase to keep the production engine as short as possible. The SOHC engine used a gear-driven generator to counteract the engine’s torque reaction. This engine was fitted into a steel, full duplex cradle frame.

But these engineers were innovators still. The fuel tank was moved down under the seat. There was a conventional-looking tank between the seat and handlebars, but this utility space held the motorcycle’s toolkit and a detached kick-starter for emergencies. It also held the coolant reservoir and fuse boxes. The effect of moving the fuel tank down was to lower the already low center of gravity even more. A further bonus was the ability to keep the dry weight down to 602 pounds despite the large engine, water-cooling, and shaft drive.

Launch And Reception Of The First-Gen Gold Wing

The CB750 was known at Honda as the ‘King of Motorcycles‘, so the Gold Wing, created to supersede the 750, was called the ‘King of Kings’. The name Gold Wing was inspired by the Honda winged logo.

Before going on sale in the US and Europe in 1975, the Gold Wing was introduced to dealers at the annual Honda dealer conference in Las Vegas in September 1974. Small fairings were mounted on two show models, but the molds were destroyed in an accident.

As a result, the Gold Wing was launched as a naked performance roadster at Intermot in Cologne the following month. It did not have a fairing or windshield and also lacked saddlebags.

1976 Honda Gold Wing Engine Specs

Specs sourced from Motorcycle Specs

Reception

The media and the public generally liked the new Gold Wing but did not really know what to make of it. This is probably because Honda did not either. It was supposed to be a super sports bike, but it was not. The Wing had a split personality.

It also offered a sporty 78 hp and had a sports seat. The dual disc brakes in front and single at the back also suggested a sports bike. The motorcycling media did not know what to do with the Gold Wing. One magazine did not even call it the Gold Wing, instead referring to it as: ‘The Honda 1000cc Four, the Gentleman’s Choice’.

Others praised the engine, the refined handling, and the abundance of power and torque, but nobody mentioned touring. A British magazine lost Honda advertising for a year by calling the Gold Wing “A two-wheeled motorcar,” and describing it as “ugly, overweight, too complicated and boring”.

Pros

• Super-smooth engine
• Low-maintenance shaft drive
• Large fuel tank
• Liquid cooling

Cons

• No fairing
• No windshield
• No saddlebags
• Uncomfortable seat

From Performance Bike To Touring Champion

The original Gold Wing wasn’t a proper tourer, but it wasn’t a sportbike, either. Really, it sort of blazed its own path as a high-tech superbike-ish roadster. In Europe, bikers wanted a slick-handling, high-performance sports cruiser, but long-distance was immensely popular in America.

Full-dress Harleys like the Electra Glide, BMWs, and Moto Guzzis were popular but not universally preferred choices. All were expensive, and some lacked reliability. The other choices were the Honda CB750 and the Kawasaki Z1, which were not built for long distances, lacked fuel capacity and had chains that required regular maintenance.

American riders soon recognized the touring potential of the Wing, and almost immediately, a strong aftermarket industry offered windshields, full fairings, saddlebags, and the like.

The Gold Wing had morphed into a tourer that could outperform the existing motorcycles, was super reliable, and cost a lot less. Honda saw this and, in 1980, introduced a touring version of the new GL1100. This had a cushy seat, air suspension, and a longer wheelbase. The engine was a 1085cc flat-four making close to 80 horses, with electronic ignition.

This was the beginning of the modern Gold Wing. The GL1100 Interstate and Aspencade introduced full fairings, windshields, stereos, storage cases, lots of light, and a CB radio – the touring must-have of the time. These bikes soon weighed more than 700 pounds, but they were as comfortable as anything, very reliable, and well-priced.

First-Gen Honda Gold Wing Vs Competition

In its first year on sale, only 13,000 Gold Wing motorcycles were sold. Fifty years later, it had sold over 640,000, most in America. The US was such a big deal for Honda that it moved most of the Gold Wing’s production to the States, where it stayed until the bleak years following the Great Recession.

The Wing got its mojo when it went full ‘tourer’ and competed with established bikes at that time. Here is how they compared to 1980, the first year Honda offered a dedicated touring model, the Gold Wing.

Specs sourced from Motorcycle Specs and Bikez

Sources: Honda, Motorcycle Specs, and Bikez