Kit Palmer | February 26, 2023
Cycle News Archives
COLUMN
40th Anniversary
It might be turning 40 years old this year, but the Honda VF750F V45 Interceptor still looks young and as fresh as it did when it first appeared on showroom floors in 1983. Give it a facelift here and a little nip-and-tuck there, and the ’83 Interceptor could still pass as a modern-day backroads sport tourer. The Interceptor looked so cool back then that it even caught my attention; you see, I was a full-on dirt bike guy at that time and had little interest in street bikes. But the Honda VF750F V45 Interceptor changed all that.
The original Honda VF750F V45 Interceptor is celebrating its 40th birthday this year.
The following year I purchased my first street bike. However, it wasn’t the VF750F V45 Interceptor, but its little brother, the VF500F Interceptor, that came out a year later (as did the VF1000F). The 500 seemed like a wiser choice for a 23-year-old motocrosser new to the street, and, besides, I thought the 500 looked even better than the 750, especially my Candy-red-and-white 500, which I chose over the standard blue-and-white model..
1984 Honda VF500F Interceptor
But it’s the VF750F V45 Interceptor celebrating its 40th birthday this year. Honda built the 750 for racing, pure and simple. The “homologation special” was designed to compete in the AMA Superbike class when the rules changed, limiting engine displacement to 750cc from 1000cc. Yet, the Interceptor had to be street compliant, too. At least a little bit.
Our Cycle News review of the 1983 Honda VF750F V45 Interceptor in one of the May issues was mixed. We liked how it performed on the road but not in the practicability department.
As far as performance, we gave it a back-handed compliment by saying, “as a sport bike our major displeasure with it is the tendency it has to let paralegal speeds creep up on the rider. That’s fine on the racetrack, but on the street, it does its go-fast job almost too effortlessly.” In other words, the Interceptor was a ticket magnet. “Two riders,” we said, “who normally never have confrontations with the police, had conversations with a uniformed official of the law. One before she had logged a single mile on the speedo… The Interceptor pulls from so low in the powerband that it doesn’t feel as fast as it is… Acceleration is strong for a 750, fairly strong for a 900.”
Subscribers of Cycle News Archives can read the original Interceptor Review from 1983 by clicking on the photo above.
We went on to say, “As the looks of the Interceptor promise, this bike is a performer. The steering is light but precise, and the handling is enhanced by twisting the throttle. Off-throttle or semi-throttle cornering can produce some front-wheel slide. None that we could really get disconcerted about, but enough to scuff the sides of the tire pretty well in a day’s ride.
“Without lapsing into superbole, we can say that everyone that rode the VF was seriously impressed with the handling and the power. One tester felt the bike had no ‘soul’ as it did everything so effortlessly.
We also said, “The Interceptor is to the canyon rider what a phone booth is to Clark Kent. With the light steering from the 16-inch front wheel, amazing leanability and its strong and wide powerband, the VF is a dream come true in the corners.”
Subscribers of Cycle News Archives can read the original Interceptor Review from 1983 by clicking on the photo above.
But as an everyday ride or commuter, we weren’t as impressed with the Interceptor, saying the handlebar positioning needed to be higher and farther forward, the overall riding position was too crouched, and there was no place to store things. Plus, the bike didn’t like to be ridden slowly. We said, “Going slow is the one area that Interceptor does not shine. The minute throttle openings that are required to keep the bike within the legal speed limits cause discomfort in the throttle hand after a few miles. Also, the ergonomics are wrong for speeds under 80 mph.”
We summarized our review: “The bottom line here is that many of us would like one or even love one. However, the lack of ways to carry things and the ease of initiating conversation with the police will keep this model out of the garages around here. Maybe. A few are weakening as we ride the bike more. For those who like the style and the crouched riding position, your bike is here. It smoothly and effortlessly performs all that is asked of it.”
The VF750F Interceptor lasted three model years (the final year stroked down to dodge a new tariff on bikes over 700cc) before getting replaced by the VFR750F. By 1984, engine issues with the VF750F started surfacing, eventually traced to its camshafts, tainting the reputation of Honda’s new 748cc, 90-degree, DOHC V4 engine, which made its debut in 1982 in the Honda Magna and Sabre 750 series. Even my VF500F V4 couldn’t escape engine woes. I got a letter from Honda’s recall department one day saying my bike could suffer “a sudden loss of horsepower” due to a problem with the crankshaft. Yikes! That sounded bad, so I promptly got that fixed.
But the Honda VF750F V45 Interceptor will always impress me and bring a smile to my face whenever I see one or a photo of one, even 40 years later. And the Interceptor only cost $3499! Okay, that might’ve been a large chunk of change back then, but that still seems like a bargain to me.CN
