What's In A Name?

[Duck n Dive]

OK... time for a bit of lateral non serious thinking.....

Does anyone know what the significance (if any) is of the letter designation for the Honda range past/present?

Over the years I've owned Honda CD's, XL's, CB's and CBR's.

In my ignorance I've never really been sure if the letters actually mean anything.

OK XL's seem to be trail types and CBR's seem to signify "quick".

But what does CD mean (D for Dull?).

Or is it all just made up........... OK over to the wonderful world of knowledge...

 

[gypsy]

have a read of this


http://www.speedace.info/honda_cars.htm

 

[Duck n Dive]

Hmmmm..... thanks that an interesting read.

We get develoment of "A", "B" & "D" type engines - all two strokes.
Then we get the "E" engine (in the dream) as the first four stroke.

Next stage of development is the more sophisticated four stroke - aparently named the "Benly" meaning "convenience".

I wonder what the significance is of the "C" is - interestingly the early development seemed to miss this type unit by jumping from B to D.

I'm still puzzled though - how's the CD175 get it's name.
C? ...... D - already used as 2-stroke engine designator.

OK since them maybe it's just that they're all named C (for whatever that means) plus B for Benly (meaning convenience), using the "R" in the same context as the cars.

Perhaps the C has some relationship to the word Motorcycle or bike in Japanese. So we get a convenient bike plus engine size?? HeHe

It's just the Japaenese have never struck me as using model designators without reason so I'm curious.

Anyone else with any ideas??

If it really is that Honda have named the CB(R) ranges s "convenient bikes" I find that quite funny.....

 

[gypsy]

c could denote "cub" ?
b benley
d dream?
r racing?

 

[Duck n Dive]

c could denote "cub" ?
b benley
d dream?
r racing?

Hey you may have cracked it there 'cause it seems the Japanese also use the name/phrase cub to mean kid or son of.

So we could get most of Honda's bikes being named:

Cub (son of Sochiro Honda) Benly (convenience) or Dream (??).

As far as I know the CD designator hasn't been used since for a long time and the bikes which did bear a very close visual relationship to the original Honda Dream.

With the "R" in the racing context it starts to fit.

We now get a range of bikes named CD's, CB's or CBR's.......... it works !!!!

Proly all bollix anyway with it just being some marketing wallahs idea..

:yo:

Fun though.....

 

[R2B2]

CBR..... Mmmmmmm - all that sounds feasible.

I wonder what's next??

 

[Duck n Dive]

CBR..... Mmmmmmm - all that sounds feasible.

I wonder what's next??

Well I believe the latest bit of news is that Honda are moving to drop the "cub" and replace it with "public" as they think they're bikes appeal to so many of the general public.

So the new naming conventino will be................

:neenaw: