Honda NAS

The U.S. motorcycle market often defies comparison. American tastes and trends can reside oceans away from the demands of riders in Asia or Europe. That's reason enough to justify the existence of Honda R&D Americas (HRA), but the creative minds toiling away within this top-secret two-wheeler think-tank do far more than merely exist: They fully intend to shape our motorcycling future.

What's more, by all appearances, this latest creation from HRA will achieve exactly that goal. Meet the New American Sports, an innovative exercise in sport bike design aimed at the very heart of what drives every mechanically minded motorcyclist across the USA: gorgeous hardware.

According to Martin Manchester, executive designer at Honda R&D Americas, "This concept bike takes a new direction in motorcycling, a path that emphasizes the beauty and aesthetics in the execution and creation of a sport bike."

Tony Schroeder, HRA senior designer, launched the NAS project in the winter of 1999, and he described how this futuristic concept took shape. "With an advanced project like the New American Sports, we aren't forced to work under a cloud of urgency; there are no production deadlines to meet, so we're free to take our time and think outside of established norms and push the limits. Unlike most advanced projects, however, the goal with the NAS was to not only create the image of a futuristic machine, but we also had the green light to take the bike to an unusually high degree of finish work. Part of our goal with the NAS was to develop and perfect new methods of model construction, and to push motorcycle engineering concepts into the 'what if' realm.