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1972 Honda M1 – Gold Wing Prototype
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1972 Honda M1 Gold Wing Prototype
1972 Honda M1 – Gold Wing Prototype
In the world of motorcycling, technology presses forward at such a furious pace that very few models survive a span of a couple dozen years. But for more than three-and-a-half decades, the Gold Wing® has done much more than merely survive: This remarkable machine has continued to create and define an entire segment of the motorcycling experience, raising standards and expectations time and time again. The following timeline provides a glimpse into the many milestones that have made the Gold Wing the icon it is today.
A design team is established, led by Soichiro Irimajiri, who headed up design of the five- and six-cylinder road racing engines of the 1960s. The team develops the M1, a top-secret prototype designed to explore the outer limits of the Grand Touring concept. The super-fast M1 features a liquid-cooled horizontally opposed six-cylinder engine with shaft drive-features that surface in the Gold Wing line in years to come.
