Quote Originally Posted by M4tt
It is difficult to be sure which Dream you are talking about; the designation goes back to 1956. As you mention the late seventies Superdream I will assume that we are talking about a similar vintage. I'm not sure exactly which British motorcycles you are comparing this with as, by the time of the Superdream, The British motorcycle industry had, to all intents and purposes, died (with the collapse of NortonVilliersTriumph in 1977). Meriden triumph may have crawled on until 1982 but that's not an industry.

I'm not sure that you can really compare any of the Honda Dreams with British bikes in the way that you have: one featured a pressed steel monocoque while the other used tube steel - of course the monocoque used thinner steel - just as the Spitfire used thinner aluminium compared to the Hurricane... The only British bike of this sort was the earlier Ariel Arrow which was a dreadful motorcycle which was inferior in every way.

However, what you can compare are the engines, electrics and quality control. I owned a Meriden Triumph Tiger, it had porous castings, dodgy bearings, awful paint, kept cracking the tank at the front mount and as for the electrics! There was not a British motorcycle of this period that this was not true of. I know, I owned most of them. The Japanese were endlessly reliable and, when loved, lasted far better than the British.

I'm acutely aware of the myth that is being perpetrated here, I was a believer myself for many years but the reality simply didn't bear it out. Towards the end, the British were desperately overextending mid fifties designs while the Japanese were producing motorcycles that were a generation or more ahead. I'm really sorry to arrive here and be quite so contentious but it seems I have.
I hope that's OK. However, while I'm at it, the Goldbird is wonderful, Thanks!
The older brother of a friend of mine had a Honda Dream in 1963 and you could still buy new BSAs and Ariels in 1963. The Hondas got some really bad press in the early 1960s and the British bike industry was still quite strong. Certainly in South Yorkshire, the police were running Ariel Leaders into the 1970s. BSA were manufacturing until 1973 and Ariel until 1967.

Eddie