Dorifutography

Imagine this: It’s the winter of 1987, and you’re standing on top of a ridge in Monte Carlo, overlooking a rough outline of a road covered in snow and ice, with little bits of tarmac peering out from underneath. You’re standing there, both jumpy from not only the cold, but also from what was about to appear around the corner. You hear it first, undoubtedly a little 4-cylinder, wringing out its revolutions, followed by a series of pops and bangs. And then it appears. What looks to be a tiny box on wheels, covered in a white, blue and red Martini livery, sliding aggressively through the flurry. You can almost see sweat drip down from the forehead of the driver, Miki Biasion’s face from intense concentration, while co-driver, Tiziano Siviero, is shouting out instructions at break-neck speed. People who were crowding the road before, run back to the edges as it ploughs its way through, cameramen snapping away. And as it whizzes off, you hear the unmistakable, aggressive chatter of the turb...

Following the success of my timelines tracking the iconic VT250 series and Honda’s flagship superbike, the Fireblade, it felt only natural to turn my attention to a lineage that bridges the gap between sensible daily commuting and pure mid-weight hooliganism. For the third installment in my Timeline Reference Special series, we are diving deep into the history of a machine that defined the modern streetfighter category for a generation of riders: the Honda Hornet. Having spent plenty of time dissecting high-performance heritage on my Instagram, I wanted to give this legendary naked bike family the exact same exhaustive, generation-by-generation technical breakdown it deserves. The name "Hornet" was explicitly chosen by Honda's design team to encapsulate the physical shape, mechanical behavior, and raw attitude of the motorcycle, moving away from sterile alphanumeric codes to give the bike an aggressive, organic identity. The styling was heavily centered on insectoid propo...