It’s been a busy news week in the motorcycle industry. Honda has just teased their neo-retro CB1000F concept again, Buell is shaking down their Super Cruiser, and Triumph has released a smaller Thruxton for the Indian market. If you’re in the market for a special bike, Charles Leclerc’s custom Husqvarna Vitpilen 701 is for sale.
Honda CB1000F and CB1000F SE Honda first showed the CB1000F concept earlier this year, but they’ve now upped the ante with a second version—the Honda CB1000F SE. On display at the 2025 Suzuka 8 Hours Endurance Race (won by Honda riders Takumi Takahashi and MotoGP star Johann Zarco), both bikes look tantalizingly close to production.
In the same way Kawasaki dressed up the Z900 to create the Z900RS, and Yamaha built the XSR900 from the MT09, Honda has draped classically-styled bodywork over the CB1000 Hornet. Honda has nailed the styling, with a boxy tank and an angular tail section that both hark back to the CB1000F of the 1980s.
The SE model adds a few luxe details—the most notable of which is its squared-off bikini fairing. It also gets a slightly different seat, a slick radiator guard, and heated grips.
Like the CB1000 Hornet, the CB1000F uses Nissin brakes, 41 mm Showa forks, and a Showa rear shock. The 1000 cc DOHC inline-four should produce around 150 horses, but we will have to see whether Honda tunes it differently. The 5” TFT display from the Hornet is in use too, but we don’t hate it—especially on the SE, where the dashboard is tucked away behind that brilliant fairing.
Honda showed off three liveries at Suzuka, all of which feel like production designs. All three look good, but we’d love to see some of the louder liveries of the 80s make a comeback.
Honda also ran the CB1000F on the track for a few laps—a clear indication that the bike is ready to sell. So, although Honda hasn’t officially announced the production version of the CB1000F, we expect that news to drop any day now. [Source]
For Sale: Charles Leclerc’s Husqvarna Vitpilen 701 Good news for custom bike nerds who are also Formula 1 fans: this 2018 Husqvarna Vitpilen 701, originally built by Bad Winners for Charles Leclerc, is for sale.
A few years back, Walid from Bad Winners received a message from Leclerc himself on Instagram. It’s not every day you get a message from a Ferrari Formula 1 driver, so Walid was initially hesitant to reply. It turned out to be legit, and it led to the creation of this wild Husqvarna Vitpilen 701.
The custom carbon fiber bodywork was all designed in 3D before being manufactured in-house at Bad Winners. The tank mimics the original in shape, but Walid added the large wings that hide the protruding radiator in an ingenious way. They also look like the floor edge wings found on a modern F1 car.
The five-spoke wheels, which are also carbon and weigh about six pounds each, were supplied by Dymag in the UK. The rear subframe was designed by Walid and made out of laser-cut steel, and the seat is trimmed in black leather. The tail light is another handmade item, jutting out from under the cowl, where a tiny Antigravity battery is housed.
A more aggressive headlight from a KTM 790 Duke was bolted on above a carbon front fender and the Renthal racing clip-ons. The dashboard was made from scratch, with Walid putting in considerable effort to make it play nice with the bike’s ECU. It’s running a full suite of goodies from Motogadget, including a wireless key fob and push-button switches that preserve all the factory functionality.
With all the modifications and carbon fiber bits, the bike had around 60 pounds cut from its dry weight. Thanks to the custom exhaust, SC-Project muffler, K&N air filter, and a Power Commander V, Walid bumped the power up to 85 horsepower. It’s both light and lively, so it must be an absolute hoot to ride.
If you’re keen to own a piece of F1-slash-custom motorcycle history, head over to Collecting Cars to place your bid. With design and provenance like this (and the fact that there is no reserve), we’re sure it will get snapped up faster than Leclerc’s Monaco pole-position time.
Buell Super Cruiser nears production We first covered the Buell Super Cruiser when the Roland Sands-designed concept was unveiled two years ago. Since then, the Buell team has been chipping away at the project in their Grand Rapids, Michigan workshop, and they’ve just announced that the Super Cruiser is nearing the end of its development program.
For those who haven’t been following the Buell Motorcycle Co. revival with CEO Bill Melvin at the helm, here’s a bit of a Super Cruiser rundown…
The Super Cruiser started as a concept bike, built by Roland Sands for Buell. The brief outlined an American-made V-twin motorcycle with the performance and handling of a much sportier machine. The prototype featured 17” wheels, a 1,190 cc liquid-cooled engine, and the swingarm from a Buell Hammerhead 1190 sport bike. Further equipped with club-style details like a headlight fairing and long bar raisers, the Super Cruiser eschews many of the elements associated with big American cruisers—which is exactly the point.
Buell has released images of the near-production-ready bike out on the road, and, as expected, the design has deviated slightly from the concept. The front wheel has changed and now sports twin Brembo brakes instead of the perimeter brake on Roland Sands’ version. The taillight is bigger, the seat is chunkier, and the emissions-compliant exhaust system is gargantuan.
With the Super Cruiser planned for production at the end of 2025, the Buell engineering team is gearing up for a month-long testing regimen. Week one will see the team travel to Arizona to assess fuel metering, overall hot fuel performance, and the all-important fuel slosh figures. The team will then send it over to Colorado in week two, where they will be testing altitude performance at Pikes Peak and Eisenhower Pass and slow-speed city crawling in Silverthorne and Denver. Then it’s over to Las Vegas for another week of hot, slow city commuting and a trip out to Death Valley.
For the final week, the team will be heading off-road in California to focus on dust intrusion, where they will be spending most of their time riding hard on dirt roads. With 175 hp and 135 Nm of torque on tap, it sounds like a good few weeks at the office. [Buell]
2026 Triumph Thruxton 400 Although Triumph discontinued the Thruxton 1200 last year, the Thruxton moniker is set to make a comeback elsewhere in the British marque’s range. Announced earlier this week for the Indian market, the Triumph Thruxton 400 packs classic café racer styling into an approachable (and more affordable) package.
Built on the same single-cylinder TR engine platform as the Triumph Scrambler 400, the most obvious change on the baby Thruxton is its stunning fairing. Derived from the fairing on the Speed Triple 1200 RR, it gives the Thruxton 400 a modern café racer edge.
The seat height has been brought down to 795 mm, thanks to a pair of 17” wheels and a shorter set of 43 mm upside-down forks. Wet weight is a svelte 183 kg [403 lbs], which should suit a wider range of riders. Power has been bumped up slightly to 41.4 hp, channeled through a six-speed transmission with a slip-assisted clutch.
Clip-on handlebars and bar-end mirrors are slung low to clear the fairing, with riders stretching out over a narrow fuel tank to gaze at the LCD dashboard. There are rearset footpegs and a preload-adjustable rear monoshock, and the single seat is paired with a color-matched cowl.
The Triumph Thruxton 400 comes in four colors, each featuring a rather attractive striped motif. Indian customers can get it in Lava Red, Phantom Black, Metallic Racing Yellow, and Pearl Metallic White, with each of them featuring a rather attractive striped livery.
There are no firm details of a release outside of India at the moment, but we’re really hoping that will change. Small bikes are big fun—and small bikes that look this good are rare. [Source]
