MUST READ: Troopers Shoot Biker and End Chase In the Most Chuck Norris Way Possible | RideApart At thirty years of age, the VF700C Magna still starts and runs like a new bike. If the tariff war caused any belt-tightening at Honda, it isn’t reflected in the build quality of the V40 Magna. The answer came as something of a surprise.īeing that 2015 is the thirtieth anniversary of the V40 and that it is such an odd duck, we thought we’d take a look back at that bike to see how well it held up after all these years. After years of 750cc bikes, I wondered why would the manufacturers opt to come out with marginally smaller displacement bikes. In fact, I hadn’t been aware of the odd circumstances that led to the brief flurry of 700cc bikes until I bought one. Without intending to, I wound up with three survivors of the tariff war period: a 1984 VF1100S V65 Sabre, a 1984 VF500C V30 Magna and a 1985 VF700C V40 Magna. That fact may have had a limiting effect on how many of those models were shipped, at least in the first year of the tariff when the tariff was highest. Too big to duck the tariff were the 1984 VF100S V65 Sabre and VF1100C V65 Magna. To create the 700cc version of the 750 V4, Honda shortened the stroke by 3.2mm, preventing the need for altering the heads if bore dimensions had been reduced. The same year, the VF700F Interceptor and VF700C V40 Magna and VF700S Sabre models came ashore to fill the gap between the 500 and 700cc displacement points. In April 1983, Reagan signed a revised version of the tariff plan that brought its focus almost entirely on Japanese manufacturers into law.Īs for Honda-perhaps the biggest target of the tariff-it coincidentally had a new V4 cruiser displacing under 700cc set for introduction in the 1984 model year: the VF500C, also known as the V30 Magna, and its sportbike cousin, the VF500F Interceptor. After that, lower the rate to 39.4 percent in the second year, 24.4 percent in the third year, 19.4 percent in the fourth year, and to 14.4 percent in the fifth year with the tariff returning to 4.4 percent after the fifth year. In January 1983, the ITC found that importation of heavyweight motorcycles but not powertrain subassemblies did threaten the domestic motorcycle industry and recommended that President Reagan act to raise the then-current import tariff of 4.4 percent to 49.4 percent and keep it there for a year. The petition sought protection in the form of a tariff on heavyweight (700cc and up) motorcycles and powertrain subassemblies.
On September 1, 1982, Vaughn Beals petitioned the International Trade Commission (ITC) for relief from what he would assert amounted to unfair foreign competition-“anti-dumping” practices as they were known. To implement that strategy, H-D needed government intervention. Harley-Davidson couldn’t do anything about the fast and reliable part, but they could try to fight back by driving up the cost of owning an imported bike.