Honda CB600F Hornet

The Hornet 600 is a bike with humble roots; its beginning lay in the Japanese-market-only Hornet 250 of 1996, a fun, if curious way to put leftover CBR250RR engines to use (the screaming miniature sportsbike had ceased production two years earlier). Compact steel-spine frame, fat wheels at either end, and UJM styling with the wrinkle of a neat chrome-heat-shielded exhaust holstered up the side of the ducktail. In time for the 1998 model year, someone at Honda noticed that the bigger CBR600F3 engine – itself headed for the old bikes’ home – would fit in the 250 frame, and brought it up at a company meeting – possibly.

It’s not much of a stretch to picture the Honda higher-ups okaying the idea with a “sure; what have we got to lose”-type shrug… then nodding in astonished approval as the modest little bike with the detuned sportsbike engine, basic suspension, low seat and clean styling sold by the container-load, spawned one-make race series and its own aftermarket industry, and generally became a cult bike – in Europe. Here, we didn’t quite get the idea of a cheap, hoonable naked 600 back then, and, after three years of trickling sales, Honda pulled it from the local lineup even as it fixed the bike’s only real foible – the 16″ front wheel – for the big European market which continued to love it.
It took until last year for Honda to update it (we’re getting it a year late). After the almost-accidental success of the original bike, there would have been some anxiety about what to change and what to leave alone. Almost a decade had passed since the original bike was designed. Technology had moved on – a lot. The new Hornet was always going to be different. That’s what we’ve ended up with – a very different Hornet – and it’s almost entirely a good thing.
Styling
The original Hornet was a simple, unassuming design. Round headlight out front, peanut-shaped tank in the middle, gently-stepped and sloping one-piece seat out back. Only that sidearm exhaust stood out – or didn’t, rather.
The new bike makes more of a statement. It looks compact and cute and just ferocious enough to get any doubters interested. It knows where it came from; the shape of the tank – down to the blue paint – and the matt sidecovers follow on from the old Hornet, and the stylists have reached even further into the past, to one of the first middleweight Honda fours, the CB400 of the mid-70’s, for the combed-over header pipes and the step-down from the seat – via a retro imprint of “HONDA” on the vinyl – onto the rear guard and the sticky-outy LED tail light. Bravely, possible stylistic liabilities have been made into features. The bullet-nosed stacked-bulb headlight is flanked by shrouds which mimic Honda’s wing logo, and rather than hidden beind heavy matt metal heat-shields, the stainless catalyser casing under the engine has been polished and streamlined into a jet fighter drop tank.

“That’s some attention to detail right there. Nothing’s just been thrown on there. Everything’s been thought about.”

The front guard’s a direct transplant from the current 600RR, the instruments, in a casing which continues that bullet-shaped theme, from the previous one. The back of the bike is tailored for pillions. The matt-finish tail panels won’t scuff, and there’s a pair of chunky grabrails neatly styled to resemble the wheel spokes – and the little slots in both of those match the ones in the front guard and the sidecovers. That’s some attention to detail right there. Nothing’s just been thrown on there. Everything’s been thought about.
Chassis
The 2008 CB600F Hornet has a reassuringly high metal content. Take a knuckle, pick a spot on the bike, bring the two together and there’ll be a gong of sheetmetal or a thump of cast alloy more often than not. Plastic is at a minimum. The bolt-on subframe is square-section tube steel as a precaution for extended pillion duty over potholed city roads. Scale-verified wet weight manages to limbo in under the critical 200kg limit. It makes Honda’s 173kg dry weight figure credible and puts a number on the weight-conscious design on show on the bike. The frame’s a solid-looking box-section cast alloy backbone with beefy rear endplates bolted on either side. The swingarm is an impressive-looking, not-the-easiest-to-manufacture tapered job with block-and-channel adjusters. Like the five-spoke alloy wheels, it’s neither a sportsbike hand-me-down nor some utilitarian design you’d justify by pointing out that it’s easy to clean. Like its styling, the Hornet’s engineering is proper.

The front engine mounts are small steel plates which bolt onto castings extending down from the steering head. These stick out somewhat, and cast alloy is particularly allergic to tarmac. Nylon or Delrin sliders would go well there. An idea for a factory accessory, maybe?