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Japanese Honda RC213V-S Makes 70 HP, What Kind of a Sick Joke Is This?

Honda RC213V-S 1 photo
Photo: Honda
To be honest, this seems to go a bit beyond our power of understanding. A bike derived from the might RC213V machine that won the last two MotoGP titles, broke records and lit new passion in the hearts of Honda lovers doesn't deserve to be offered in a 70-horsepower trim as standard.
Okay, maybe in certain markets, restrictions are a bit wacky (the 100hp limit in France being just one of them), but delivering a bike that's advertised as being the closest thing to a MotoGP machine one can get and take to the street DOES come with certain expectations, right? And they are not going to be exactly low.

Even more having a bike that does 70 horsepower in stock trim selling for a huge price and asking another pile of money for the racing kit that takes it into the real sport bike realm is a bit off.

A €188,000 70 horsepower bike is a weird type of joke

Since we mentioned the price issue, we'll take our time to remind you how much is the RC213V-S going to set you back. If you live in Europe, you can take the stock, 159 hp version home for €188,000. In the US, you only get 101hp for $184,000, while Australia riders can take one home for AUD 224,000.

If you want a bike that packs power to match the other standard, modern-age superbikes, you'll have to get the race kit, which takes the power figures to a more credible 215 hp. However, in Europe it will require another payment of €12,000 (equivalent to $13,390).

The US Dollar conversion is only there for the sake of conversions, as the race kit will not be available in the US, for reasons that are still a mystery. The non-street-legal race kit is apparently available for purchase in Japan, for a price that was not disclosed at the time of writing.

A rider who wants to buy the RC213V-S in Japan will have to fork out almost 22 million Yen tax included, and this isn't cheap in the land of the Rising Sun, either.

We'll stop here, without even beginning to enumerate the bikes costing ten times less than the RC213V-S (or even less) and that are more powerful than it. And finally, the big question: will the RC213V-S be equipped with the huge exhaust silencer that has ruined the looks of so many amazing machines already?
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