http://www.cycleworld.com/article.asp?section_id=3&article_id=474
Strange Case of the Missing Honda CBR1000RR
First you see Big Red’s all-new 2008 repli-racer, then you don’t...
By David Edwards
September 2007
Honda may be the world’s biggest bike-maker but it seems they have a little to learn about the Internet. When the company’s 2008 models were loaded onto American Honda’s media website last week, Big Red’s big news—the long-rumored, totally redone, Gixxer-hunting CBR1000RR—was not intended to be among them. That unveil was supposed to be at the Paris Show on September 28.
But, oooopppps!!!, there they were, three side-profile shots of the new CBR, big as day. The unintended images were taken down within a couple of hours, but being good newshounds, of course, we took that gift from the Web Gods and ran with it, posting the pictures on
www.cycleworld.com. There was no additional info about the bike, but it was clear it had been made more compact (390 pounds claimed web scuttlebutt, propelled by 175 hp from the inline four-banger). Also visible was the underslung “midships” exhaust and tiny MotoGP-style tailsection. Not on display but heavily rumored: Advanced electronics, maybe even traction control.
As you can imagine, American Honda, in full damage-control mode, was not impressed with our news-gathering capabilities. Claiming a murky “unauthorized use” clause, they wanted the photos yanked.
We pointed out that once the Internet cat was out of the bag, it was impossible to put back in, that we weren’t the only ones who had accessed the rogue photos, that Google knows no national borders, that the World Wide Web is just that, world-wide. Our friends at England’s Motor Cycle News, for instance, had the
CBR shots online, as did
Raptors and Rockets, not to mention numerous Internet bulletin boards and forums, including
CW’s.
Still, we are nothing if not good corporate citizens here at
Cycle World, so down the home-page images come. We invite you to join the discussion about the new
CBR1000RR on our forums.