GOLD STANDARD

There is no way Honda’s brains trust, way back in 1975, could have known it was sending into the market a model that would become the benchmark (some may unkindly say “Bismarck”) for luxo-tourers for just about ever more.

Back then it was an oddity, billed as a sort of gentleman’s express. A boxer layout big-bore fatty. More lardy than lah-dee-dah. I reckon Honda expected it to sink without trace — that Bismarck reference just won’t go away.

Well. If that was their thinking, boy, did that turn out to be misguided. Launched as the GL1000 in 1975, its horizontally opposed four-cylinder engine was not only physically different, it was