5 Of The Best-Sounding Honda Motorcycles Ever Built

There's something particularly engaging about the sounds produced by motorcycles. When a car sounds good, it does so through the insulating materials of windows and body panels. Or, maybe, you roll the windows down and bury your foot in the loud pedal before rolling towards the horizon. But when a motorcycle sounds good, it raises the pulse of the rider and everyone else nearby with just the flick of a wrist. There are no metal panels between you and the sound, no insulating fabrics or closed windows. Twist the throttle on a bike with an evocative mechanical soundtrack and the response is immediate. Pops, bangs, whirs, and growls are all right there, just inches from your ears.

Honda is one of the world's longest-lasting and most prodigious motorcycle manufacturers, producing machines in just about every shape and size imaginable over the years. And in that long history of bike building, it has made some utterly unique bikes with amazing audio signatures all its own. Whether those sounds come through stock exhaust pipes or with a bit of aftermarket assistance, there are plenty of Hondas that can be counted among the best-sounding bikes ever. Here are some of the best-sounding Honda motorcycles of all time.

Extra small modern Honda motorcycles (the ones that border on scooter territory), like the Honda Grom and the plucky/retro Dax 125, use single-cylinder engines. With only 125cc of displacement, there's not a lot of room in the engine bay for extra pistons. But back in the 1960s, Honda had a different way of thinking when it came to tiny-displacement bikes. The RC149 was an extremely small motorcycle by today's standards. It weighed just 187.4 pounds, and had a 124.42cc engine with five cylinders. That's about 40 pounds less than the current Honda Grom, with a scarcely believable four additional cylinders. 

On top of being a lot of engine packed into a tiny package, the RC149 revved to the moon — it spun all the way up to 21,500 rpm, and it sounded like the angriest of F1 cars as it manically moved towards the top of the tach. It produced just 34 horsepower, but that was enough for its intended purpose: racing. The RC149 won several 125cc-class races during its day, and it undoubtedly made a terrific series of sounds as it went down the straightaway toward its top speed of 130 mph.

A few years ago, I purchased a Honda CBR250, and because I love the unadulterated sounds of motorcycles, I slapped a cheap, unmuffled exhaust on it. My friends described it as an angry helicopter with the loud, concussive thumping of the single-cylinder engine. It angered my neighbors and delighted me every time I rode it. The classic '90s CBR250RR MC22 is, thankfully, nothing like that. Instead, the CBR250RR is high-revving, high-pitched, and music to the ears of anyone who lusts after Formula 1 noises.

Like the RC149, the CBR250RR MC22 packed a lot of cylinders into a small space — it was powered by a four-cylinder engine with just 250cc of displacement. It revved sky high, with a 19,000 rpm redline, and it screamed through its preposterously small single exhaust outlet the entire time. With 30 years of development between the RC149 and the MC22, they don't sound exactly alike, but these two small-displacement motorcycles make similarly sonorous statements: Big personalities can come in little packages.

The CBR1000RR is one of the most popular liter bikes from any manufacturer, and it's an icon that's had a special place in Honda's lineup for years. The Fireblade name has been around since the early 1990s, and it represents the highest-performance sportbike variant available from Honda. On early models, it was attached to an 893cc engine in the CBR900RR, but over the years, as performance and size grew, Fireblade became a 1,000cc designation.

In our recent review of the Fireblade, we were particularly impressed by the screaming inline four-cylinder engine. According to Honda UK, the current CBR1000RR-R makes around 214 horsepower at 14,000 rpm. Whether you stick with the stock exhaust or go with an aftermarket pipe (like the Akrapovič exhaust fitted on the bike you see above), the Fireblade offers deep exhaust notes at idle and racetrack-adjacent sounds as it rips toward redline. The smaller (and less powerful) CBR600RR makes a lot of great sounds too, and it might earn a spot on this list if the list were just a little bit longer. But between the two modern versions of this iconic Honda motorcycle, the 1000RR wins out.

There aren't a lot of V-twin engines in Honda's history books. Typically, when you think of a motorcycle with a V-twin engine (even a Honda), it's a cruiser of some sort — an Indian or a Harley-Davidson, for example. But one of Honda's most infamous sport bikes was powered by a V-twin: the RC51 (also known as the RVT1000R). Based on race-winning superbike technology, the consumer version of the RC51 only lasted a few years, but it made a big impact thanks to a deep growling tone and its unique engine configuration.

Even though it was restricted to 10,200 rpm, the RC51's 90-degree V-twin still made all sorts of excellent noises, especially at idle and in the low-RPM range where it differentiated itself from V-twin competitors like Ducati. After some changes to racing regulations in 2003, Honda stopped racing the RC51, and eventually discontinued the model altogether. In 2006, the RC51's final year of production, it made 133 hp at 10,000 rpm and 71 lb-ft at 8,000 rpm — a stout number, but not enough to hold off the high-revving 1000RR that took its place.

There's not much in the motorcycle world that looks or sounds quite like the Honda CBX1000. Forget high-revving four-cylinders or bass-rich V-twin race bikes. The CBX used six cylinders, and not the way the hulking Gold Wing cruiser uses six cylinders in a horizontally opposed pattern. No, the CBX lined all six cylinders up in a row, powering the first Honda motorcycle to achieve triple-digit horsepower back in 1981. The six header pipes are on constant display, prominently exiting the engine in front of the rider, with three pipes on each side eventually reducing down to one. The result is twin exhaust pipes that produce a growling and refined soundtrack, often likened to the raw Formula 1 cars of the same era.

Like the RC51, the CBX1000 had a relatively short run, only lasting for a few years. The 1,047cc six-cylinder engine made all sorts of excellent noises and impressive power, but it was overshadowed by four-cylinder engines that were more competitively priced and eventually more powerful. It may have had a short life (like the RC51), but the CBX1000 has an enthusiastic fan base that understands its unique place in history. And anyone who hears it ride by will immediately understand why.