The rarest Honda CB on the planet is not sitting in a museum vault in Japan, it just crossed an American auction block for a price that would make a supercar dealer blush. A one-off 1968 Honda CB750 prototype has become so valuable that it now trades in the same financial neighborhood as a brand-new Lamborghini Huracán Tecnica. For collectors, it is a reminder that the most coveted motorcycles are no longer the budget alternative to exotic cars, they are competing with them.
What makes this CB so valuable is not chrome or nostalgia alone, but the fact that it is effectively the missing link between Honda’s race-dominated 1960s and the superbikes that followed. Built as a hand-finished test bed, this machine predates the production CB750 that rewrote the rules for street performance. In a market where provenance is everything, that early status has turned an old four-cylinder into a blue-chip asset.
The prototype that rewrote the record book
The bike at the center of the frenzy is a 1968 Honda CB750 prototype, a pre-production four that arrived in the United States as a development and promotional tool before the model officially launched. Earlier this year, that machine sold at a high profile American sale for a sum large enough to be described as “Lambo money,” a nod to the fact that its hammer price rivaled the sticker on some modern supercars. Coverage of the sale notes that the prototype is a totally unique, hand built machine, assembled before Honda committed to full series production, which instantly separates it from even the rarest sand cast CB750s that followed.
On the block, the bike was introduced as a historic CB750 prototype, with the auctioneer for Mikum Auctions emphasizing that the seller, identified as Mr vic Wool World, had chosen that stage specifically to reach the world’s most serious collectors. The prototype’s story has been pieced together over years of research by enthusiasts who tracked early CB development, including the way Honda used these machines to test specifications and gauge American reaction before committing to mass production. That detective work, often shared in enthusiast circles under headings like prototype, has helped confirm that most of the other early test bikes were destroyed or lost in Japan, leaving this example as a lone survivor.
The prototype’s mechanical specification underlines why it matters. Honda poured serious resources into the CB program, and with R and D funding available thanks to the ample sales of the smaller CB450, engineers created a 68-horsepower inline four that was years ahead of most street bikes. That output, combined with electric start, a front disc brake and Honda reliability, made the production CB750 feel like a factory race bike with mirrors. Having the prototype that proved the concept, and that helped Honda fine tune the package before it hit showrooms, is like owning the first draft of a classic novel.
From $148,100.00 to “Lambo money”
To understand how wild the latest sale is, it helps to look at where CB750 prices were not long ago. A decade ago, collectors were already paying serious money for early sand cast examples, with one 1969 Honda CB750 bringing $148,100.00 at auction, a figure that stunned fans of Honda, Kawasaki and Suzuki who still thought of Japanese bikes as the affordable side of the hobby. That bike was valuable because it was an early production machine with a sand cast motor, the kind of detail that makes collectors lean in. Even then, the idea that a CB could be mentioned in the same breath as a six-figure Italian exotic would have sounded like bench racing bravado.
The prototype sale changes that conversation. Reports on the auction describe the 1968 machine as a totally unique, hand built CB that is worth more than some of today’s supercars, a point underlined by coverage from Hank, a self taught wrench with more than a decade of industry experience who has watched classic Japanese prices climb. In a follow up look at the bike, he notes that it is a totally unique, hand built machine that now commands more money than some of today’s supercars, a line that has been widely repeated because it captures how far the market has moved. That same analysis, highlighted in a deeper dive on the totally unique nature of the bike, frames the sale as a watershed moment for Japanese classics.
The comparison to a new Lamborghini is not just rhetorical flair. A dealer listing for the Hurac Tecnica in Washington shows the Lamborghini Hurac as a current production supercar available through a Lamborghini store near Washington, D.C., the kind of car that usually defines the top of the enthusiast food chain. The fact that a 1960s motorcycle can now sit in the same price bracket as a fresh Huracán Tecnica is a clear signal that the old hierarchy of cars over bikes is breaking down at the very top of the market.
More from Wilder Media Group: