Our Japanese source also revealed today the all-new V4 sports tourer’s engine is smaller than the VFR800 motor in every dimension, thanks in large part to a vee-angle significantly less than 90 degrees.
WMBS believes the engine will feature a 76 degree vee – giving the motor an inherent imbalance compensated for by twin offset crankpins.
New models on hold
Our source also revealed that two sister models – a giant-trailie Varadero and grand-touring Pan European version (pictured above) – are finished and ready but on hold pending the success of the VFR.
That decision - “a lack of corporate balls you wouldn’t have seen in Soichiro’s day” according to our source – has pushed the price of the VFR “higher than it needed to be”.
The source – who has seen all three bikes in prototype form – claims that a simultaneous launch was possible and “would have paid Honda back faster”.
He claimed both bikes had the looks to dominate their respective classes and that the “tentative bean-counters who now run Honda” were keeping them from launch.
