by Eric Kraft
Most vintage Honda fans are familiar with the chrome Z50RD “Christmas Special” from 1986. On the collector market, these all-chrome jewels bring a substantial premium over the more common red ’86 Z50R. It is a well-documented fact that Honda dealers had the opportunity to buy these bikes just in time for the ’85 Christmas season. But many vintage Honda aficionados have never heard of a much earlier group of chrome specials made by Honda.
From about 1960 until about 1966, Honda produced a very limited number of all chrome C100T (Trail 50), C105T (Trail 55), C110 (Sport 50), CT200 (Trail 90), CB77 (Super Hawk 305) and perhaps other models. Depending on model, the steel frame, fuel tank, fender(s), handlebars, forks, luggage rack, and swingarm were done in chrome rather than the standard paint. Plastic parts such as side covers, air cleaner, fender, and front valance/headlight housing were done in a contrasting color – red on the C100T, C105T and CT200. Black or red on the C110 and CB77.
The most common legend is that Honda built these bikes as rewards to be sold only to dealers who met their sales quotas for the previous year. This explanation – true or not – has perpetuated among the collectors who own these very special bikes. After all, why not reward dealers who were really doing a great sales job? Remember, Honda was then in its infancy in the United States – just having formed American Honda in 1959 – and was fighting a battle to change the American perception of motorcycles and motorcyclists.
In 1960, as far as most Americans were concerned, the typical motorcyclist was a rough, dangerous, leather-wearing hoodlum, as portrayed by Marlon Brando in the popular 1953 movie “The Wild One”. In keeping with that image, the typical motorcycle shop was a dirty storefront selling big, noisy, leaky Harleys, Triumphs, or BSAs. Motorcycles and motorcycle shops were just plain scary to the general public.
Honda sought to change this image by introducing Americans to simple, easy-to-ride, bulletproof little bikes like the ubiquitous 50cc “step-thru” models. In late 1962, American Honda debuted the “You meet the nicest people on a Honda” ad campaign and the rest is history.
So it does make sense that Honda would want to offer enticements like special chrome models to dealers who were able to sell lots of bikes. But, as far as I know, no one has ever produced any documentation to that effect. Even old Honda employees that I have spoken with don’t remember the genesis of the so-called “chromies”. My search for a Honda internal memo from that era confirming the fact that the chrome specials could be bought or were awarded to high-performing dealers has come up empty.
Regardless of how they came about, I had been looking to purchase an early chrome C105T to add to my collection for quite some time when I came across a very rough, unrestored ’62 model located in Michigan. I contacted the seller, who had bought the bike in a multi-bike purchase and really had no interest in restoring it. We were able to come to an agreement on a purchase price and I had the bike shipped to me. Fortunately, like most of the existing chromies, the little ’62 was originally a dry-climate California bike and, during restoration, I was able to save almost all of the original chrome plating.
As part of the restoration process, I started looking more carefully into the stories surrounding the origin of the chrome specials from the 60s. Everyone I spoke to seemed to be repeating the same story about these bikes being available as dealer rewards. Again, there was never any documentation to support this story and all conversations seemed to be strangely identical: “I heard they were rewards for dealers who hit their sales quotas.” If that was the case, then why did most of them come seem to come from southern California?
Finally, I ran into someone who said he worked in the service department of one of Bill Robertson’s huge Southern California Honda dealerships during the 60s. Exclusive Honda dealerships were very rare in the early 1960s, and Robertson owned two of the largest, Honda of Hollywood and Honda of Burbank. The ex-employee told me that the old “rewards” story was rubbish and that if any Honda dealer ordered a batch of at least 25 of any particular model, they could get the bikes painted any color they wanted – or even chromed. By way of proof, he showed me a 1962 magazine ad claiming that Robertson’s dealerships could sell you their “exclusive all-chrome Trail Cubs.” The ad featured a picture of an all chrome 1962 C105T loaded up with a gun scabbard and camping gear.
He went on to tell me that Robertson ordered two 50-bike batches of chrome C105Ts – along with smaller batches of other chrome models over the years. For me, this was a much more reasonable explanation of the origin of the chromies. It explained why most seem to have been sold new in California – and also explains why some kind of American Honda document has not surfaced to corroborate the “reward” story.
As part of my research into the chrome specials, I put together a registry of all the chrome models I could document. This list includes five C100Ts, sixteen C105Ts, four C110s, five CT200s, and five CB77s. Further supporting the “batch theory”, most of the bikes seem to come from closely numbered groups. This implies there was probably only one 25 (or 50) bike batch of each model, except for the C105T – which seems have been built in two batches of fifty bikes.
So how did these bikes really come to exist? Maybe you have some further information to support one of the two theories? Maybe there is another story out there? Whatever the truth might be, these are very cool little bikes and a mostly forgotten piece of Honda history.
