The International CBX Owners Association

Looks like a rare original to me Louis.....

Hi Larry,There even used to be a pink one owned by somebody in Farnham,Surrey.UK!!!!!! Told him he should see a doctor!! They probably have a pill for it!!!
cbxmel ICOA 1876

cbxmel wrote:Hi Larry,There even used to be a pink one owned by somebody in Farnham,Surrey.UK!!!!!! Told him he should see a doctor!! They probably have a pill for it!!!
cbxmel ICOA 1876

Hopefully not from the factory Mel....

Hi there. The list of low VIN# CBXs still "alive" can be ammended with my CB1-2000062 currently being restored in Norway.
Also, I believe the first bikes - VIN# ...0042 to ...0880 were sold in the States and the first bike sold in Europe was VIN# ...0881 (correct me if I am wrong).
Were the first bikes silver in the States or were they randomly mixed red or silver?
Can anyone tell me what was the highest engine# where we can find slick cylinder studs?
Regds,
Svein

Hello Svein

I can help you colors and low serial number as listed below in the ICOA Database for membesr. There could be even lower numbers since this was a Excel one pass sort and in this field there were mulitple bikes entered. I can not help you related relating serial numbers to smooth cylinder studs.

1. Color for below listed serial numbers: About the same count for red and silver.

2. Low serial Numbers for members

CB1-2000048
CB1-2000052
CB1-2000054
CB1-2000056
CB1-2000075
CB1-2000079
CB1-2000111
CB1-2000118
CB1-2000119
CB1-2000127
CB1-2000150

I do have one question though....you said "I believe the first bikes - VIN# ...0042 to 0880" were sold in the States and the first bike sold in Europe was VIN# 0881" ......how did you know this.

Welcome to the line and I am sure one of the members here that can help you relate smooth cylinder studs to serial numbers, which I think is a very good question and certainly in my view would effect the value of these bikes if one would factor the cost of installing spiril studs in a low serial number CBX to ride it or even start it.

Best

Mike

I can help with some of the first bikes sold in different countries in Europe:

CB1-20 00876 United Kingdom
CB1-20 00879 France
CB1-20 00871 Germany
CB1-20 00881 Rest of Europe

Lowest Engine serial number in a production bike in Europe was:
CB1E 20 01070

Tomorrow I can post the engine serial number for the changeover from smooth studs. It is somewhere below 4000.

Mike, the reason I believed the European bikes started with CB1-2000881 was because I had heard when importing and registrering one of my first bikes (VIN# CB1-2000272) that the Norwegian MVD didn't have any paperwork related to CBXs with VIN numbers lower than CB1-2000881 (which led me to believe that this was the European standard bikes).
I know that the first bikes were shipped to and sold in the States - I have bought bike #s ...0251, ...0272, ...0386, ...0415, ...0617, ...0637 and ...0810 (if my memory serves me correct - most of then I have sold to fellow CBXers here in Norway and they are all being taken very good care of!).
The numbers of the UK, France and Germany bikes were interesting to find out about. I don't know (yet) which was the first bike sold in Norway, but I am trying to keep up my research.
Also, I find engine # specs and frame-engine # matching questions interesting - especially for the first -78 models as I call them...
regds,
Svein

All who are interested -

The Frame and engine number ranges for the production z model's (1979 models in the US) are shown in the Honda factory Parts books. As are the various technical changes made through the lifespan of the model. The earliest numbers posted by Mike (EMS) correspond accordingly. Certainly the earliest production bikes are in the USA and Canada. I know of number 43 in Canada. All the earliest bikes (first 2000 or so - Honda were manufacturing at a rate of 2000 per month) were made in April 1978, corroborated by the manufacture date on the VIN plate of US spec bikes.

If you really want early bikes then the pre production bikes number 1 to 41 are very interesting as they were unique hand built bikes, the earliest with sandcast engines. Most were destroyed on the orders of Honda however numbers 13 and 14 are in Norway. Svein - I wrote an article on them in one of the previous issues of the UK Club magazine. They were used as homologation models in Norway and Sweden. In Canada James Elliott had number 32, with a manufacture date of January 1978 and badged as a 1978 model on the VIN plate. And in a museum in Canada there is bike number 7 also badged as a 1978 model. This bike is pretty original having been kept by Canadian Honda almost all its life, although interestingly it has an A (1980) model tailpiece I assume because the original was damaged and would have looked poor when on display. Bike number 7 would have been built around October 1977 in time for the model launch in November 1977.

cheers

Ed

Ed, I don't think the Canadian market had the same start as the U.S.
They had early demo and pre-production bikes in Canada, but sales started later there than in the USA. Some may have brought bikes over from the South.

The change from smooth to knurled engine studs occured at engine serial-number CB1E 20 03478.

Lowest CBX VIN-number still existing in the U.S. I have on record is CB1-20 00045 with engine number CB1E-20 00064, which is a silver 79 model and was sold in Ohio in August of 2007.

Highest VIN-number of a 1979 model I have is CB1-20 23865 which was a custom bike in Germany with USD forks and a Schuele 6-1 exhaust.

One of the pre-production models is in Indianapolis at Cycle Outfitters. Owned by Rick of Rick's Tricks, the guy who does the smooth-bore conversions. I've not seen the bike, but he told me all about it. Honda gave it to him in appreciation for his help in developing the bike.

Gentlemen,
Ed did not mention that I own the sandcast head of cbx number 28 which was one of the Honda Uk press bikes together with a few other rare sandcast parts.The main difference some of you are maybe aware of is the head does not have the large chrome bolt on either side of the head. Honda had ordered the press bikes be destroyed but I managed to obtain parts of one of the bikes from an ex Honda Uk employee who had stored them in his roof loft for many years! Just as well he did as otherwise would now just be scrap.He could not bring himself to throw them in a skip as Honda instructed.Closeups of this and other sandcast parts will be featured in a book Ed,myself and the editor of the UK cbx club magazine Dennis Lodge are compiling for future publication. We are not rushing it as we want everything to be correct. We feel a book on the finer detail and history of the cbx is long overdue. We have much materiel that has never seen the light of day so I hope you will enjoy in due course.Watch this space. cbxmel
Mel ICOA1876

I wish you all the best with this project, Mel. It is quite a challenge. The CBX history is so country/region-specific that it will take quite some research to put together a publication that will satisfy everybody. I am sure somebody will pop up in some corner of the world who will argue with one or the other "fact" that will appear in the book. I can probably easily come up with 10 things that were different for the 4 models in different countries.

cbxtacy wrote:When you're not riding yours, someone else is riding yours but thinking it's theirs. It's a conspiracy.

maybe I can convince Bill in PA that the earth is flat also

Here is an update to that perennial subject!
I had enlisted the help of a couple of friends to do some research as an input for our CBX data posters for VMD Mid-Ohio. I asked for the highest frame and engine numbers recorded anywhere. The results were:

1979 Frame CB1- 20 24095, Germany

1980 Japan SC03-20 01387 Canada
1980 Marysville SC03-20 13286 USA Highest engine serial number: SC03E-20 04745 (stolen in Sweden)

1981 Frame SC0609BC 305672 USA Highest engine serial number SC03E-23 06581 USA

1982 Frame SC06-24 02866 Germany Highest engine serial number SC03E-24 05481 Germany

Assuming the VIN-numbers each would be the last bike built, that would bring the total number of CBXes to 37,306 so far, with the 1980 model built in Japan being the rarest of them all, followed by the 1982.