Photo heavy:NZ Dealership launch: CycleSpot Honda

[Richard Thompson]

we went along to the relaunch of Cycle Spot Honda, on aucklands North shore Last night (Friday night) to see the new dealership. It has relocated about 2 doors down from where it used to be and for those with local knowledge is now on the far side of Holeshot Suzuki/Triumph.

this view shows the frontage a little closer. do you see that white bike poking out from behind the scooter?....more on that later!

I have known these guys a long time and have bought,at a rough count, about 8 new honda's and a similar number of Used bikes from them. There old place was a little dated so this new premises brings them right upto date as probably NZ's premier Honda destination store. The store is now much bigger
and has a modern airy feel to it with plenty of New honda metal on display, in fact the full range was instore; from the Rune to the Predator, transalp, ST 13, Fireblades and of course the VFRs!
This super sport racer rep was for sale. its a CBR 600 in Hanspree livery


and of course there was the latest Repsol blade. you cant see it in this pic but on the other sid e of this was a mankin with a genuine set of pedrosa leathers. that dude is seriously small...about the size of a 12 year old i reckon.


(my buddy kirk does his best impesonation of a "motoGP podium"...LOL)
The NZ Honda distibutors-Blue wing honda, came to the party by providing a display for the evening of some of Hondas finest 'old school'....

there was a display of Classic hondas on one wall which included a line up CB's from the 350, 450 ,750 and CBX 1000 as well as a beautifully restored SL125. Note also the CR110 racer and NSR 250SP in Rothmans livery below..nice.

tucked away right up the front was the new 2009?10 colour for the VFR here in NZ....she looks spectacular!


i was sorely tempted to trade in my red gen 6 for this ...hmmmm....maybe.
certainly the pictures dont do it full justice.
honda are doing some fairly aggresive marketing at the moment to drum up business...0% finance over 24 months is mighty tempting...
Lastly we found this old Rossi Rep 600 lurking in the corner also. kirk used to have one of these in the RWB colours!

they also do the full range of dirt bikes and store owner grant Woolford is a bit of an off road guru

being a destination store means they stock selected lines in depth.
so were talking Shoei for helmets, Revit & Alpine stars & Technics for gear and i was very pleased to see Ohlins instore as well (that would look good on my 6G!)

Lastly, i got the oppurtunity to spend some time talking with aaron slight. These days hes pretty much a Honda ambasador around NZ and does a bit of motorsport commentating for the V8 supercar racing.
basically i told him about VFRW and what we do which he was very interested in, because of his sucess & association with honda and the RC45.
he told me a great story about his own RC45 which he still has in a crate,unopened,untouched at home.
The up shod is that i hope to organise a V4 track day through the 'Honda riders club NZ' and have invited Aaron to be a part of that( which he seemed keen on!) soooo..hopefully this summer we can put that together.
stand by for a further report on that one..

aaron was a genuinely nice guy and very approachable so i look forward to doing some more stuff on him for you guys...

[Richard Thompson]

Holy cow....that took an hour and a half to post up..i need to go ly down now..

[vfrlover4life]

That VFR looks very nice. I love that color scheme. Thanks for the writeup!

[cebuVFR]

that black and white vfr looks Damn Good!!! Thanks for sharing.

[Yonan]

Man thats a nice Honda store. Ours looks like a outhouse compaired to that. I hate our local dealer, all he has is dirtbikes and quads. Never once seen a VFR there.

[drewl]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

[leftcoast]

very cool indeed!

I first watched Aaron Slight when was WSB-ing his RC45 around Laguna Seca w/ a kid named Colin Edwards....chasing Carl Fogerty.
the 916 / 944 Ducs vs the 749 / 781 V4's.
you could watch / hear / smell the different technologies as the pit crews squoze the last bit of power out of those engines.
And the sounds of each bike as it accellerated & then decel'd into the turns.

cool stuff.

I wondered where the Mohawk went. thanks for the update!
if you do meet up with him again, please tell him thank you for me.

[Richard Thompson]

Originally Posted by leftcoast

very cool indeed!

I first watched Aaron Slight when was WSB-ing his RC45 around Laguna Seca w/ a kid named Colin Edwards....chasing Carl Fogerty.
the 916 / 944 Ducs vs the 749 / 781 V4's.
you could watch / hear / smell the different technologies as the pit crews squoze the last bit of power out of those engines.
And the sounds of each bike as it accellerated & then decel'd into the turns.

cool stuff.

I wondered where the Mohawk went. thanks for the update!
if you do meet up with him again, please tell him thank you for me.

you know.....he might uncrate that RC45 for aV4 only track day....hmmmm..

and also... i fixed up a couple of image glitches in the thread..sorry for the delay. I had to wait till i got home from work today!

[derstuka]

Nice Richie Rich.....sweet pics! I spied a sweet CBX in the old school photo....nice NSR as well. That looks like a very cool dealership. Tell me, are you more partial to your purty RWB, or that suave looking white and black 2009?

Thanks for taking the time to share all of this....nice to see how things are rollin' down under and over to the right...

Later brotha...

[crynsie]

I popped in to the opening today as well (before a fantastic run in the waitaks to Piha, Karekare etc)

The new b and w vfr is just stunning to look at.... really took my breath away.

All I could say over and over was "want, want, want, want"

The store is really nice and grabbed some summer gloves for a great price (I love opening specials)

Hoping my lotto numbers come in so I can go back and say "I'll take that one!"

Really, it looks fantastic!!!!

[Richard Thompson]

Originally Posted by derstuka

Nice Richie Rich.....sweet pics! I spied a sweet CBX in the old school photo....nice NSR as well. That looks like a very cool dealership. Tell me, are you more partial to your purty RWB, or that suave looking white and black 2009?

Thanks for taking the time to share all of this....nice to see how things are rollin' down under and over to the right...

Later brotha...

hey, no worries. its good to share the VFR love from the other side of the world.
cant say i'll be selling the RWB,shes a keeper, but i still have my red 6G so maybe....

definatly llove that black / white scheme. looks very james bond....