{"id":20971,"date":"2023-01-25T00:01:01","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T08:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=20971"},"modified":"2023-01-25T18:19:19","modified_gmt":"2023-01-26T02:19:19","slug":"dream-bikes-the-honda-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/25\/dream-bikes-the-honda-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"Dream Bikes: The Honda Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Dad and I saw our first Honda ever in 1964 at a McDonald\u2019s in East Brunswick, New Jersey.\u00a0 It was a 150cc Dream, the smaller version of the bigger CA 77 305cc Dream.\u00a0 I was 12 years old at the time.\u00a0 In those days, it was a fun family outing to drive the 20 miles to Route 18 in New Jersey and have dinner at McDonald\u2019s (that was the closest one), where hamburgers were 15 cents and the sign out front said they had sold over 4 million of the things. And the Honda we saw that day\u2026Dad and I were both smitten by the baby Dream, with its whitewall tires, bright red paint, and the young clean cut guy riding it.\u00a0 True to Honda\u2019s tagline, he seemed to be one of the nicest people you could ever meet (although admittedly the bar wasn’t very high for nice people in New Jersey).<\/p>\n

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Dad and I started looking into Hondas, and that included a trip to Cooper\u2019s Cycle Ranch near Trenton.\u00a0 \u00a0Back then, it really was a ranch, or at least a farm of some sort\u2026the showroom was Sherm Cooper\u2019s old barn.\u00a0 The little Hondas were cool, but the big ones (the 305s) were even cooler. A 305 was the biggest Honda available in the mid-1960s and Honda imported three 305cc motorcycles to America:\u00a0 The CA 77 Dream, the CB 77 Super Hawk, and the CL 77 Scrambler.\u00a0 The Dream was not designed to be an off road motorcycle (that was the CL 77 Scrambler\u2019s domain) or a performance motorcycle (in the Honda world, that was the CB 77 Super Hawk).<\/p>\n

Of the 305 twins, \u00a0It\u2019s probably appropriate to discuss the CA 77 Dream first.\u00a0 The Scrambler and the Super Hawk were intended to appeal to motorcycle enthusiasts; the Dream was a much less intimidating ticket in (into the motorcycle world, that is).\u00a0 The typical Dream buyer was either someone stepping up from a smaller Honda, or someone who had not previously owned a motorcycle.<\/p>\n

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Honda first used the name \u201cDream\u201d on its 1949 Model D (a single cylinder, 98cc two-stroke).\u00a0 No one knows for sure where the Dream moniker came from, but legend has it that someone, upon first seeing the Model D, proclaimed it to look like a dream.\u00a0 The C-series Dreams first emerged in Japan in 1957.\u00a0 Pops Yoshimura built Honda engines with modified production parts that ran over 10,000 rpm for 18-hour endurance races, proving the basic design was robust.\u00a0 Some say Honda based the engine design on an earlier NSU engine, but Honda unquestionably carried the engineering across the finish line.\u00a0 Whatever.\u00a0 When\u2019s the last time you saw an NSU?\u00a0 Another big plus was that Honda used horizontally split cases and that (along with vastly superior quality) essentially eliminated oil leaks.\u00a0 The other guys (and in those days, that meant Harley and the Britbikes) had vertically split cases and they all leaked.\u00a0 Honda motorcycles did not, and that was a big deal for a motorcycle in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

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There were several differences between the Dream and the other two Honda 305cc motorcycles.\u00a0 The Super Hawk and the Scrambler had tubular steel frames and forks; the Dream used pressed steel for both its frame and fork.\u00a0 The Dream was a single-carb motorcycle; the Super Hawk and the Scrambler had twin carbs.\u00a0 The Dream had large steel valanced fenders, the other Hondas had more sporting abbreviated fenders.\u00a0 The Dream was the only 305 that came from the Honda factory with whitewall tires.\u00a0 The Dream had leading link front suspension; the Scrambler and the Super Hawk had telescopic forks. \u00a0\u00a0The Dream used the Type II crankshaft (so did the Scrambler) with a 360-degree firing order (both pistons went up and down together, but the cylinders fired alternately).\u00a0\u00a0 The higher performance Super Hawk had the Type I, 180-degree crankshaft.\u00a0 Like the Super Hawk, the Dream had electric starting (the Scrambler was kick start only).\u00a0 The Dream came with a kickstarter, too, but why bother?\u00a0 I mean, you weren\u2019t going to be mistaken for Marlon Brando when you rode a Honda Dream.<\/p>\n

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The Dream\u2019s 305cc engine had a single 23mm Keihin carb and it produced 23 horsepower at 7500 rpm (not that the rpm was of any interest; the Dream had no tachometer).\u00a0 With its four-speed transmission and according to magazine test results, the Dream was good for between 80 and 100 mph (depending on motojournalist weight, I guess). \u00a0The Dream averaged around 50 mpg, although in those blissful days of $0.28\/gallon gasoline, nobody really cared.\u00a0\u00a0 Honda Dreams came in white, black, red, or blue.\u00a0 With 20\/20 hindsight, I wish I had bought one in each color and parked them in the garage.\u00a0 My favorites were black or white; those colors just seemed to work with the Dream\u2019s whitewall tires.<\/p>\n

Honda built the Dream until 1969.\u00a0 The Dream retailed for $595 back in those days, but a shrewd negotiator could do better.<\/p>\n

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