Continuing to blur the lines between established motorcycle segments, Honda has teased out another pair of unique motorcycles, which will formally go-down as 2014 model year machines. Available in Spring 2013. The 2014 Honda CTX700 & 2014 Honda CTX700N use the same 670cc parallel-twin engine found in the NC700 series, which was an engine designed to be a sensible and practical urban power plant for city bikers.
Building something that looks the cross between a street-standard and a cruiser, Honda is offering ABS brakes and an automatic dual-clutch transmission (DCT) as an available $1,000 option. The hope is clearly that the Honda CTX700N & Honda CTX700 will be an approachable and affordable motorcycle for new motorcyclists, and with prices at $6,999 & $7,799 respectively ($7,999 & $8,799 with DCT and ABS), Honda seems to have achieved that goal.
If you take a close look at the CTX700N and its fairing-less design, you can see many of Honda’s other design elements shining through from other machines. Meanwhile, the faired CTX700 takes cues from its bagger-tourer cousin, the Honda Gold Wing F6B, albeit in a smaller and lighter form-factor.
Honda is clearly trying to channel a “big bike” look and feel into these relative small (28.3″ seat height) motorcycles, and it will be interesting to see the market response in regards to these machines. It is hard to tell if Honda’s crossover strategy is paying off at the dealerships, but the Japanese brand continues to push the agenda each model year, so something must be working.
Source: Honda America
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