It’s one of the most bizarre Hondas ever and Honda never went that far again

Its official name is the Honda NRX1800 Valkyrie Rune, and it was unlike any Honda seen before and any Honda seen since. The engine was familiar, being the unit found in the Gold Wing, but that was where the similarities stopped. If Honda had a reputation for building ‘boring’ motorcycles, then the Rune was the polar opposite of that reputation.

Senior Designer Martin Manchester had a lot of freedom to express a new creative direction. He said: “Our goal was to produce something new, something no one had ever thought of before. We wanted to create a fresh look, but one that would also serve as an engineering showpiece, a cruiser with a new level of performance and technology”.

Amazingly, Honda gave the design team the freedom to do whatever they wanted and, even more surprisingly, they were told that there are no commercial constraints: the final price of the motorcycle wasn’t a consideration. The outcome was a motorcycle that cost a reported $100,000 each to manufacture and which would sell for $25,000, with the shortfall of around $225 million (if 3,000 units were sold) to be put down to marketing expenses! It was the ultimate showpiece and flagship model, and it certainly made people sit up and take notice in a way that Honda hadn’t experienced before…or since!

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Before the Rune was launched in 2003, a total of five concept bikes were designed and built. At first, the Zodia started the madness. The engine was a 1,500cc V-twin with a drive to the rear wheel via hydro-mechanical automatic transmission, known as the Human-Friendly Transmission, or HFT. The front suspension was trailing link and there was a single-sided swing arm. Then there were four further concepts, named T1 to T4. The 1998/1999 T1 was powered by the flat-six engine from the Gold Wing. Large and gaudy, finished in bright yellow and with plenty of chrome, it certainly wasn’t your typical Honda.

The T2, T3, and T4 appeared together at the Cycle World Show in 2000. The T2 most closely resembles the final Rune design, T3 used the drag strip as inspiration and featured a six-into-six exhaust system, flames on the bodywork and the front brake discs were bolted directly to the wheel’s spokes. It was the only concept to have a chain final drive. The T4 was commissioned by Honda as a technical study for different construction techniques. These ranged from a near-seamlessly welded twin-spar frame, billet aluminum triple clamps, and a billet swing arm, to an exposed-shaft driveshaft. The rear tire was a drag racing, square section, 260/95 item.

Honda then spoke to fans and focus groups to see which concept was the more popular. To their surprise, it was T2 that was the crowd's favorite, which gave Honda a problem as they had already started new-model development on the T1, expecting that concept to be the one most people liked. Many outsiders and fans thought that the Rune, in T2 guise, could never be built, even by Honda. One person said “I would buy this bike, just as it is, but I know it could never be done. It would be impossible even for a company such as Honda to build a bike just like this.” Even Honda insiders didn’t think it could be done.

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All it took for the T2 concept to be translated into reality was for Honda to listen to the voices that said it could never be built, flip corporate bird, and go ahead and actually build it! The man tasked with carrying out this challenge was Large Project Leader Masanori Aoki, who already had the experience of building unusual and out-there bikes, such as the NSR250 and the GL1800cc Gold Wing.

Even Aoki thought the Rune concept was too radical to be able to go into production. Elements such as the exhausts and wheels had been designed with no thought to actually putting them into production. Even the radiator had to be virtually reinvented to cool the massive engine while not detracting from the overall design (the concept bike had a radiator that would have been sufficient to cool a 22-horsepower engine, let alone one that produced five times that much!)

Nor was the engine simply lifted from the Gold Wing. It was re-tuned with hotter camshaft profiles and different fuel injection settings and ignition timing maps. The exhaust system was different and, while power output remains the same for both engines, those who have been lucky enough to ride both a Gold Wing GL1800 and a Rune say that the Rune feels more hooligan, especially in the mid-range, while the Gold Wing has a higher top speed, due largely to the better wind-cheating properties of the Gold Wing’s fairing.

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The T2 concept had a trailing link front suspension and was copied faithfully for the production Rune. It features twin shocks mounted on either side of the headstock, just behind the headlight. The left unit is the damper and the right unit contains the spring. But, it was at the rear that things were even more interesting. Derived from the then-current RC211V MotoGP bike, it was designed to improve mass centralization, both for balance as well as to increase frame design options, because it had no top link attached to the frame. It also permitted a low ride height, essential to the appearance of the Rune.

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No one is sure exactly how many Runes were built and sold: estimates range between 800 and 3,000 copies. What is certain, however, is that Honda lost a huge amount of money on each one, and perhaps it eventually fizzled out because Honda America (the Rune was built at the Marysville, Ohio Honda factory) just wasn’t prepared to take the financial hit.

What is also certain is that the Rune emboldened Honda in the design of future large cruiser-type motorcycles. Both the 2014 Valkyrie GL 1800 and the Gold Wing F6B have obvious design cues that can be traced back to the Rune and here’s an interesting thought: the Rune was completely futuristic and contained no reference whatsoever to a previous model, which might have made it easier for the buying public to accept.

The Valkyrie and F6B, on the other hand, refer back to the Rune, so there is a heritage of sorts. History has dealt harshly with those who would try and install a new order into things. You only have to look at the success of the BMW R18, which harks back to BMWs of the 1920s and ‘30s, and compare it to the distinct lack of success of their previous attempt at a cruiser, the R1200C, which had no such precedent. Whichever way you look at it, the Honda Rune was one strange motorcycle but, boy, are we glad it existed!

The Honda rune was a futuristic cruiser based around the engine from the Gold Wing GL1800 and looking like nothing else in motorcycling. Honda built it, because, well, everyone said it couldn’t be built and, for the first and probably last time, Honda jilt it to prove everyone wrong.

You can’t buy a new Honda Rune, but you can find used ones from $20,000 upward.

The Honda Rune had the flat-six engine from the Honda GL1800 Gold Wing

Harry has been writing and talking about motorcycles for 15 years, although he's been riding them for 45 years! After a long career in music, he turned his hand to writing and television work, concentrating on his passion for all things petrol-powered. Harry has written for all major publications in South Africa, both print and digital and produced and presented his own TV show called, imaginatively, The Bike Show, for seven years. He held the position of editor of South Africa's largest circulation motorcycling magazine before devoting his time to freelance writing on motoring and motorcycling. Born and raised in England, he has lived in South Africa with his family since 2002. Harry has owned examples of Triumph, Norton, BSA, MV Agusta, Honda, BMW, Ducati, Harley Davidson, Kawasaki and Moto Morini motorcycles. He regrets selling all of them.