The history behind the legend of the CBX "School Bike"

[NobleHops]

Wow, very cool. A user with the handle "DynoDan" just posted the following on CBXWorld, very valuable content, and worth preserving on two locations for certain:

--

In the early 80's, I was the VoTech Administrator at American Honda. The VoTech program at American Honda, provided Honda Training to public school instructors that had Motorcycle, Small Engine, and Automotive programs. Instructors were invited to participate at Honda Training Centers around the U.S.. No charge! The summer VoTech program provided special training courses designed to provide both Honda Technical Training and training resources to instructors to be used in their home schools. Participating instructors were also given priority for donations. Honda's goal was to help satisfy the need for motorcycle technicians at the dealership level.

Regarding the donations, Honda was considering donating overstocked motorcycles to a well known charity. The charity would sell them and use the money for charitable needs. However, this meant that a large number of bargain motorcycles would ultimately harm dealer sales and dealer relationships. I pitched the VoTech donation program, and the goodwill and publicity that would be generated by having the local dealerships make the donations to the vocational programs that had participated in VoTech training. It took some planning to get things going but the OK came through and Central Vocational Technical School in Drumright, Oklahoma was the first to receive their new training units. By the way, the Instructor was Mickey Baugus and his program had received an award from the Secretary of Education for an outstanding vocational program in the United States. Mickey's son still teaches the motorcycle program after Mickey's retirement.

All together, Honda made 2,500 motorcycles and ATV's available for donation. By the way, this program was part of Honda's 25 year celebration in the United States. The then president of American Honda and the Governor of Oklahoma met at a celebration at Central VoTech.

So what was given away. About 1,200, 1981 CBX's, around 500 - 600 1983 CX 650TC (Turbo) quite a few 400cc motorcycles and a bunch of 3-wheeled ATVs.

During my tenure at Honda, I was not allowed to make donations to proprietary schools such as MMI. I left Honda in 1984 and the person following me developed the association with MMI for donations.

I have fond memories of my days at Honda, the Honda associates, and the many great Instructors, Teachers and Administrators I met. Who else can say they gave away over $5,000,00.00 worth of motorcycles, engines, ATV's, tools and technical information while having a great time?
_________________
DynoDan
Los Viejos Osos M.C.

[steve murdoch icoa #5322]

I had not heard about the 400cc and the 3 wheeler donations.
Thanks for the info, Nils.

[EMS]

Nice to hear details about the very origin of the program that most of us are familiar with. It confirms that no 1982 CBXes were donated as "schoolbikes". Ever so often one pops up with a claim to that "fame".
What I would like to have read is a little more detail about what the stipulations were around the donations.

DynoDan is, or at least used to be, a member here too. He has not visited here in 10 years, but when he last did, he posted a picture of his bike.
It is (was?) a 1981! Maybe he managed to get one donated to himself...



* Thanks, Nils for the post. Hope you don't get any copyright infringement complaints.