What makes a Honda a Honda? How does one define the essential form of a new bike? Is it a particular styling treatment or an idealized design? Does a certain level of performance always enter the equation? How about the inclusion of innovative and groundbreaking concepts? Do these standards evolve over time? How and when do aesthetics come into play? Do beauty and fun play a determining role in the creation of a new motorcycle?

While all this might sound a bit hypothetical and esoteric, when it’s time to produce a new machine—in this case, the Honda CB1100—all such thoughts and many more enter the creative process. Many individual decisions must be made and over time a concept bike takes shape, one element at a time, leading to production of a new model.

On the recently created Honda site listed below, you can experience some of the thinking and decision-making steps along the road to developing the Honda CB1100. Warning: This is not a hard, cold look at engineering minutia. Rather, this is a very personal journey that one designer undertook to create an all-new machine that first and foremost speaks to the soul of a motorcyclist. Indeed, the process is a real revelation, a case study of how our sport can be so uniquely expressed.

http://world.honda.com/design/designers-talk/cb1100/