I'm pretty sure every body will know this but just in case it's news. The article about the CB72 on this site queries the engine size and suggests that it might have been to satisfy an arcane Japanese law. More likley to satisfy an arcane UK law in the fact that learner bike riders in the UK used to be restricted to 250cc machines, or unlimited machines if fitted with a sidecar. Also the UK bikes were not, to my knowledge fitted with hydraulic steering dampers as shown but with friction dampers which ran through the steering yoke, these were fairly common on 50's and 60's larger British bikes.
More interestingly, although not THAT interesting, my first bike, a 1966 CB72, had stainless steel exhausts with removeable mild steel baffles, the footrests were moveable on alloy plates with a rather sloppy adjustable jointed gear linkage and moveable brake lever assembly and the weirdest part of the bike was the forward kicking kick start.
The CB 72s had an air of real quality, a later Honda CB360 G5 I had was junk, in comparison. When abused I got the speedo up to over 95 mph which I guess was 85 plus, amazing in the fact that the bike did not explode when subjected to this treatment unlike other bikes of the day like the BSA Starfire and Barracuda, the Royal Enfield Continental GT and Yamaha YDS3 and 5. Probably the bikes to keep up with it were the Ducati Desmo 250, horribly expensive, the Suzuki Super 6 - a bit fragile and Bridgestones (later Kawasaki) although these were very rare and I think only came in 175 and 350 versions. I could go on but look, the boxes end is coming!
CB72
I had a 66' CB72 (in 68') myself. Great bike, that I really miss. I pulled those heavy mufflers off and put on a set of megaphones. I also replaced the headlight & gauges with CB350 units. I also put some CP77 305 motor parts on it (a head that was ported & carbs), painted it a Royal Blue and had the air cleaner side cover chromed. Tried a set of clip-on handlebars and found very quickly that I just wasn't suited for them.
Later on, Bill
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