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Honda NAS Concept Bike
Designer: HONDA Americas
From Honda's Press Material as stated on Sportrider.com
( http://www.sportrider.com/bikes/146_01_honda_nas )
"The U.S. motorcycle market often defies comparison. American tastes and trends can reside oceans away from the demands of riders in Asia or Europe. That's reason enough to justify the existence of Honda R&D Americas (HRA), but the creative minds toiling away within this top-secret two-wheeler think-tank do far more than merely exist: They fully intend to shape our motorcycling future.
What's more, by all appearances, this latest creation from HRA will achieve exactly that goal. Meet the New American Sports, an innovative exercise in sport bike design aimed at the very heart of what drives every mechanically minded motorcyclist across the USA: gorgeous hardware.
According to Martin Manchester, executive designer at Honda R&D Americas, "This concept bike takes a new direction in motorcycling, a path that emphasizes the beauty and aesthetics in the execution and creation of a sport bike."
Tony Schroeder, HRA senior designer, launched the NAS project in the winter of 1999, and he described how this futuristic concept took shape. "With an advanced project like the New American Sports, we aren't forced to work under a cloud of urgency; there are no production deadlines to meet, so we're free to take our time and think outside of established norms and push the limits. Unlike most advanced projects, however, the goal with the NAS was to not only create the image of a futuristic machine, but we also had the green light to take the bike to an unusually high degree of finish work. Part of our goal with the NAS was to develop and perfect new methods of model construction, and to push motorcycle engineering concepts into the 'what if' realm.
"If you look at existing machines in today's market, you see that the top-tier sport bikes were designed by engineers for racing purposes; repli-racers own the spotlight. We wanted to set a new direction for sports bikes, but back to the street rather than toward the racetrack. The market for racer-style bikes is obviously strong, but we envisioned a different group of riders searching for a new category of sport machine. The vast majority of consumers spend their entire riding lives on the street, not the track, so it's not necessary to establish racing function as the top priority for these riders. And so, we gave the New American Sports a highly personal, owner-directed allure by incorporating a superior level of execution, using visible mechanical parts that are highly stylized and finely finished."
- Please go to http://www.sportrider.com/bikes/146_01_honda_nas for the complete press release.
Designer: HONDA Americas
From Honda's Press Material as stated on Sportrider.com
( http://www.sportrider.com/bikes/146_01_honda_nas )
"The U.S. motorcycle market often defies comparison. American tastes and trends can reside oceans away from the demands of riders in Asia or Europe. That's reason enough to justify the existence of Honda R&D Americas (HRA), but the creative minds toiling away within this top-secret two-wheeler think-tank do far more than merely exist: They fully intend to shape our motorcycling future.
What's more, by all appearances, this latest creation from HRA will achieve exactly that goal. Meet the New American Sports, an innovative exercise in sport bike design aimed at the very heart of what drives every mechanically minded motorcyclist across the USA: gorgeous hardware.
According to Martin Manchester, executive designer at Honda R&D Americas, "This concept bike takes a new direction in motorcycling, a path that emphasizes the beauty and aesthetics in the execution and creation of a sport bike."
Tony Schroeder, HRA senior designer, launched the NAS project in the winter of 1999, and he described how this futuristic concept took shape. "With an advanced project like the New American Sports, we aren't forced to work under a cloud of urgency; there are no production deadlines to meet, so we're free to take our time and think outside of established norms and push the limits. Unlike most advanced projects, however, the goal with the NAS was to not only create the image of a futuristic machine, but we also had the green light to take the bike to an unusually high degree of finish work. Part of our goal with the NAS was to develop and perfect new methods of model construction, and to push motorcycle engineering concepts into the 'what if' realm.
"If you look at existing machines in today's market, you see that the top-tier sport bikes were designed by engineers for racing purposes; repli-racers own the spotlight. We wanted to set a new direction for sports bikes, but back to the street rather than toward the racetrack. The market for racer-style bikes is obviously strong, but we envisioned a different group of riders searching for a new category of sport machine. The vast majority of consumers spend their entire riding lives on the street, not the track, so it's not necessary to establish racing function as the top priority for these riders. And so, we gave the New American Sports a highly personal, owner-directed allure by incorporating a superior level of execution, using visible mechanical parts that are highly stylized and finely finished."
- Please go to http://www.sportrider.com/bikes/146_01_honda_nas for the complete press release.
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