1983 Honda VT500

JH2PC100SDM001369

Very cool super rare 1983 Honda VT500 Ascot in the awesome Interceptor, Red White and Blue paint scheme. I have seen a few of these bikes, but I have never seen this color combo. I have to say it's great. Way better than the drab Blcak, Blue, and even Candy and Burgendy Red. But then again I have an 86 VFR 750 so I'm partial to the look! I looked around the net a bit but was still not able to find another example That looked this good. One reason may be that the bikes are hard to find in the V twin 500 to begin with and even harder to find good, clean, running examples. But yet, here one is! This bike is a blast to ride. Just the noise it makes when you hit the electric start brings a smile. Rev the liquid cooled V twin power plant and the smile erupts into a grin. Pull up the stand, slap it in gear and roll on the super smooth power and let the bottom end torque erase any idea that this is a small bore bike. The light weight helps with the power to weight ratio and helps the bikes brakes and handeling as well. This bike is FAST as the six speed gear box is already pushing 30 mph winding out first gear! Seems to be highway or desert gearing. I got it up to about 60 just getting into 3rd on a back road. For an 83 dual shock bike the suspension was very smooth on the holed up road I was on, but that's not real surprising considering the Ascot was a Euro inspired bike and sports much longer suspension travel than most street bikes. You can tell by looking at the rear shocks how they are mounted farther front on the swingarm than a normal street bike. Honda did this with dirt bikes in the early 80's as well to increase rear travel just before the switch to single trac "mono" shocks. This bike was way ahead of it's time in 83 and is now what may be called a super motard or even a hooligan bike Where a 400 - 600 cc dirt bike is moded with street wheels / tires, better front brakes, lower stiffer suspension and ridden on the road or even a part pavement, part dirt race course. Take a look at the KTM V-twin street bikes for example. So you get the cool factor of the new super motard bikes, the head turning sound of the V-twin with a Super Trap exhaust, and the thumbs up nod for the Vintage bike to boot with the excellent Red White and Blue stars and bars. The bike features: Shaft drive! Nice clean look with the low maintance Liquid cooled V twin motor! Super Trap Exhaust! Center stand for easy tire and wheel access Issues I can see with the bike are: Left mirror glass is missing Rear turn signal is broken on the left Both the Tach and spedo needles are broken off near the center The spedo does not register. May be the drive cable but I'm not sure. The bike shows 2400 miles but since the spedo is not working I am not listing that as actual miles although by the looks of the bike it is possible that may be very close. It is however unknown how long the spedo has not been working. This is my buddies bike and he was restoring it with the intent to use as a daily driver but he ended up picking up a CBR 900 RR and seems to like it ;-) So he is letting this one go. The bike runs and drives, clean Pa title ready to go. NOTE: There was some confusion on my part about the paint job. It is not a factory job, it is a very high quality custom job. The paint job included: Bare frame repaint that included separating the drive shaft end. Very nice pearl white main color with metal flake Seat recover in red Very nice blue trip color paint and hand painted red piping. Hand painted lettering VT 500 Ascot Very nice detailed fuel tank