Honda Motorcycles 1959-1985: Enthusiasts Guide is an amazing, full-color exploration of these classic, originally inexpensive and tiny bikes that invaded the US in the early 60's. I'll admit that I'm more of a classic car nut, but one of my earliest loves was the motorcycle. As a kid of the 60's and 70's, I studied the design and function of motorbikes (and cars of course) and would make drawings of them from real life and books. I expanded this into what is now known as the American chopper and honestly, I didn't spend too much time on the early offerings from Japan. I certainly missed out on something special, as evinced by the contents of this book.

This enthusiast guide provides many descriptions of the variations between different Honda models from a collector's viewpoint. The photos are detailed and the information if engrossing. If you're thinking of buying a classic Honda bike, or have already done so and wish to do an accurate restoration, this book is a must-have. For Honda historians, this book has a wealth and breadth of information rarely found in similar homage books. I especially liked the pros and cons of each model as detailed, along with why things were changed in future iterations - yes I know it's a bit much, but we who are OCD about collecting and restoring understand the mentality of the author, Doug Mitchel, and the though process used putting the Enthusiasts Guide together.

I've looked at some similar books and haven't found anything close to what you get in this package: detailed descriptions; color photos with close-ups; lists of variations; history of manufacture; and resources for parts. You could do much worse - kudos to the author! ( )

Was expecting something different. Seems to be geared towards someone looking to buy or sell motorcycles. I'm actually not sure what I was expecting. My mistake to request it for Early Review.

What a wonderful for any motorcycle enthusiast, let alone one who is really into Hondas. The exhaustive reference work which explores each bike made during the 1959 - 1985 time frame gives amazing detailed looks at every model, their differences and the innovations each succeeding model year went through. An excellent piece of history and quite the useful tool for anyone wanting to perhaps buy or recondition one of these models. Included is an interesting interview with the restorer Roger Smith and a nice additional guide on where to and what to look for when shopping for parts.
In all a very handy guide indeed, nicely packaged with many photographs detailing some of the specific items to look for within each motorcycle, easy to read explanations about the bikes themselves, and lists of the comparisons between the sequential years.
I'm very happy to have won this book through LibraryThing. ( )

This book presents a very interesting history of the Honda motorcycles from 1959 to 1985. It is chalked full of colored photographs that attracted my middle and high school students. I liked the concise specification graph on each bike. It was easy to read and made comparisons between the bikes easy. The only downside I could find with the book was that it stopped with the 1985 motorcycles. I would love to see an up to date edition of this book. ( )

This is a very well written and very detailed book. The photography is excellent with several phots of each motorcycle. There is also an area describing the exact specifications of each bike. If you ride Hondas or just like motorcycles this would be an escellent resource book for you.