Spotted in a supermarket carpark - strangely attractive variation on the usual matt black Honda CX500. Although ridiculed for their weight, styling and initial reliability problems (knock, knock: who's there? CX500 big ends...)the press raved about them in 1978. Even comparison tests against the Italian competition (Laverda Alpino, Guzzi V50 and Morini 500: the late 70s was a 500-fest)found the Honda handled as well as the Latin lovelies if you allowed for its girth, but was a lot faster, better spec'd and a whole lot cheaper. This looked like the beginning of the end for the Italian bike industry, making their current success all the more remarkable.
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