Honda CB650: 1979-1982

The year is 1978, model-year 1979, and Honda eliminates their Single OverHead-Cam Four-Cylinder (SOHC/4) CB550 and CB750 streetbikes from their offerings. Since 1969 Honda's SOHC/4 design had captured the hearts and minds of critic and consumer alike. Beginning with the Harley-killing CB750, Honda built a line of motorcycles around this power plant that lasted until 1982, the year the Nighthawk moniker is introduced as the CB650SC. The other SOHC/4 bikes that Honda still produced in 1978, the CB550 and CB750 saw a 1979 update that gave them Honda's new double overhead cam four.

Honda recognized that there was stil a place for what some considered an aging power plant and introduced a new bike in 1979 that used an updated, larger version of the CB550 engine - the CB650.  For the next four years, the CB650 in its various permutations proved popular as a middle-weight all-around bike.