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Watch the €188,000 Honda RC213V-S Being Built by Hand

Ever wondered how the Honda RC213V-S comes to life? Here's a nifty official video made by Honda and showing the assembly process of their highest-tier road-going motorcycle, RC213V-S, the street version of the MotoGP prototype.
Honda RC213V-S assembly team 6 photos
Photo: Facebook capture
Honda RC213V-SHonda RC213V-SHonda RC213V-SHonda RC213V-SHonda RC213V-S
A €188,000 (in the US the bike retails for a base price of $184,000) price tag on a motorcycle IS steep, especially when we're not talking about useless bling introduced in the building process.

We saw bikes studded with thousands of Swarovski crystals, motorcycles made of gold and similar machines that sold for a fortune, but it's not the case of the Honda RC213V-S.

This machine costs so much because it is the closest a common rider (and a rich one, too) can ever get to a MotoGP machine, at least as long as we don't count buying bikes that have actually been used in MotoGP.

In its base trim, the Honda RC213V-S is street legal, but with disappointing peak power figures. In the US, the base model produces a meek 101 hp, while European and Australian units are gifted with 159 hp. The Japanese model is the most ridicule in street-legal trim, with only 70 hp @ 6,000 revs.

Installing a Sports Kit takes the RC213V-S to the 215 PS bar

If you're willing to unleash the bike's full potential, a Sports Kit is needed. Once the kit fitted, the bike is good for 215 PS at 13,000 rpm. However, this boon comes at a price, and it's not only the €12,000 (no price for the US) for the kit, but also the street legal attribute.

This means that the 215 hp and (now) €200,000 Honda RC213V-S is a track-only machine, and all that's missing is a talented rider. Or a passionate collector, for what's worth.

Now, the video after the jump is quite thrilling because we never expected to see Honda workers actually welding the chassis by hand. Nor were we willing to believe there are people sanding frame pieces by hand until a perfect fit is attained, but this also explains the price tag.

Basically, it's hard, if not downright impossible to find such a high-tech piece of machinery that is handcrafted to such a degree. The first Honda RC213V-S was delivered to a lucky rider in the UK before Christmas.

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