Weird fashion brand tie-in hides a potentially significant new bike

When a new bike gets shown in Milan it’s normally at the annual EICMA show – but someone at Honda seems to have got mixed up and the company has unveiled its new Mid Sports Concept at Milan Fashion Week instead.

Ok, so really the launch timing comes down to a tie-in with show and fashion brand Onitsuka Tiger, part of a new collaboration between the two brands, which both trace their heritage back to the same part of Japan in the late 1940s.

While the bike’s full name is Onitsuka Tiger Honda Mid Sports Concept, and Honda’s press release concentrates on the clothing collaboration and avoids any technical details, let’s skip past the yellow paint and branding for a moment and look at the bike underneath. To all intents and purposes, it’s a CBR750R.

The main chassis and engine are straight from the CB750 Hornet, which means we’re looking at a machine with at least 67.5kW at 9,500rpm and 75Nm at 7,250rpm. Probably a bit more thanks to Akrapovič exhaust that’s fitted, but even if it had the stock Hornet part it’s right up there, performance wise, with the trusty but increasingly old, four-cylinder CBR650R. A tad less power, yes, but much more torque and less weight. A CB750 Hornet comes in at 192kg, nearly 20kg less than the CBR650R, so even with a few kilos of plastic bodywork added, the Mid Sport Concept should be much lighter than the CBR650R.

It’s an absolutely logical move for Honda to make, too. The twin-cylinder CB500 range includes a naked bike – the CB500F – an adventure bike in the form of the NX500 and a sports bike in the CBR500R. Step up a capacity class to the Honda’s modern 750cc twin lineup and there’s the CB750 Hornet naked bike and the XL750 Transalp adventure model, but no sports version. Yet.

While Honda could have simply slapped some concept bike plastic on the Hornet and called it a day, the Mid Sport Concept goes a bit further. It gets gold coloured upside-down forks and the same Brembo radial brakes that are used on the CB1000 Hornet SP. Beyond that, it features a completely new swingarm and – a subtle detail that hints at a production future – its own set of cast alloy footpegs and hangers that don’t appear to be borrowed from another model.

The bodywork is also eminently believable for a production model, with hints of Honda’s 2027 MotoGP prototype, the RC214V, in its bewinged nose and the extensions on the lower part of the side panels. The riding position isn’t too extreme – the pegs are quite low and the bars are high for a sports bike – and it’s easy to see how a pillion pad could be affixed to the tail to make it a more practical proposition.

This version of the bike uses the standard CB750 Hornet’s manual clutch and transmission, but Honda also offers its E-Clutch system on the Hornet so it would be easy to add it to a future CBR750R, matching the equipment of the existing CBR650R.

With rivals like Yamaha and Suzuki pushing twin-cylinder sports bikes in the form of the R7 and the GSX-8R, and Kawasaki expected to launch a revamped Ninja 650 twin for 2027, a parallel twin CBR750R makes too much sense to be ignored. Apply a different coat of paint to the New Mid Concept, and that’s exactly what Honda has here.