I read somewhere that the name drop was political, I think there were a few other bikes that drop names as well.
I think there is anothor thread about this here somwhere.

 

I dont know for sure, but its likely something they did as a marketing tactic at first to draw people to their bike, then the dropped it once the bike established itself as a winning machine for the most part.

 

i think they dropped the name cu'z there's no connection between honda and hurricane, they wont people confuse and scared, they just want use a simply name like suzuki and hayabusa..

 

sorry typhoon, but how can you not associate the name hurricane with honda? when I hear hurricane now I first think of bike, not the weather

 

a little about the name drop and found this, not much but I will search more



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_CBR1000F

 

well, did alot of searching on this and read a post from a honda employee who said at the time of the release of the '89, the japanese decided that the "hurricane" name did not properly represent the bike. they were going to come up with a replacement name eventually, but never happened, so it simply remained the "CBR". dont know how accurate the info is, but sounds close enough for me!

 

if ur a bike builder would u use hurricane name instead ur name? u can use name hurricane unless if hurricane is ur business partners and the name hurricane is wicked, its not good for business...

 

I think it was a shift on all manufacturers to go to a alpha numeric designation rather then a name, about ten or so years ago. The Hurricane become the CBR 1100 XX but kept the "Super Blackbird" name. The VFR pretty much dropped the "Interceptor" name with the gen 5 ('98) bikes. All the CBR's became just a numnber (at least in the US). Yamaha killed off the Thunderace and Thundercat names and went with R1 and R6. They did keep the YZF part. Suzuki never did name their sport bikes, except for the Hayabusa, which also had the GSXR 1300 designation. Kawaski underplayed the Ninja name, by naming their bikes ZX-XX Ninja. But they all really became know by the ZX-XX designation.
I beleive it was more of a marketing decision rather thenfor insurance or any other reason.

I still love the Interceptor and Thunderace names though. In fact there is a Thunderace for sale near by.....[sm=drlove.gif]

 

Stray Cat's explanation makes the most sense to me.

There's no accounting for the decisions of the marketers. Whatever they think will sell the most is the way they'll go.

Personally, I prefer telling people I have "an '87 Hurricane" over saying "an '87 CBR1000F".