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Honda T4 Concept

Precious Metal from Honda R&DMASTER FABRICATOR MIKE MCCLUSKEY spends most of his time bringing old Shelby Cobras and classic airplanes back to life. He isn't much of a motorcycle guy.

That's why you've never seen anything like his six-cylinder Honda design exercise, and at least part of the reason Honda R&D America has tapped him for the project in the first place. Dubbed the "T4," McClus-key's handiwork is one of four flat-six-powered customs commissioned and created under the auspices of Honda's Torrance, California-based skunk works over the last two years. Intended to let design types color outside the lines imposed by mass production, Honda R&D's custom project has generated plenty of eyebrow-raising ideas. "Production motorcycle design can impose unconscious limits on the creative process," says Honda PR Chief Pete terHorst,"so we asked Mike McCluskey for a new look at what's possible." A close look at the GLI800m

Honda's radical T4 concept bike; the shape of things to come?
powered T4 reveals as much artful fabrication as stunning design. The seamless spar frame that appears to have been milled from one massive aluminum billet was actually welded together from three pieces of the stuff. The solid billet swingarm was assembled from three sections also, with an exposed outboard drive shaft to make room for that real-deal 26.0 x 9.0-15 Goodyear drag slick. The shaft's front and rear gear cases are billet bits too. The artistry of a guy like McCluskey lives in pieces like a billet, front engine hanger that the average minivan-driving primitive couldn't see or appreciate.

Everywhere you look, the T4 is an overdose of eye candy for connoisseurs of precious metal. All those Allen bolts? They're flush-mounted. There's clear coat over the brushed aluminum. Now don't you wish you'd paid attention in metal shop? As you Masters of the Obvious will have surmised by now, don't expect McCluskey's magnum opus to roll into a Honda showroom any time soon. But look very closely at the coming attractions sure to follow the 2002 VTX into production and we'd bet a year's supply of chrome polish you'll recognize some of its pieces. — Tun Carrithers

Source Motorcyclist 2001