Got to check out the latest version of the Honda Unicorn to hit the roads it the Honda Unicorn Grand Prix Edition, recently at the Sriperumbudur race track near Chennai. This is a replica of 2006 MotoGP championship winning Repsol Honda of Nicky Hayden. Some people think its a complete relaunch of the unicorn, but it is only a variant.
The quality of the paint is really excellent as is the factory stickering. The look is finally a sporty unicorn. The wheels are now orange and we foresee a lot of people, buying these wheels to fit it on their Karizma’s and older Unicorns.
What’s strange in the new look, is the copy used on the stickering of this fine looking machine which reads, “Honda RC 211 V the winner of the 2006 moto gp race”. The machine won a Championship and should more correctly be dedicated to that. Anyways, this is just being finicky and most people (I’ve already seen 4 on road in Bangalore after the launch) wouldn’t bother about that. But,this is where the differences to the older unicorn end.
The engine is smooth, just as in the older unicorn and no bump in power. This motorcycle should have ideally been released with a more powerful engine, its a MotoGP replica released by the company, for chrissakes!
Goes to show what the manufacturers in India think the general public wants, looks over performance. Which is true to a certain extent. But, this is a limited edition and should have been special. Hopefully, sometime in the near future, Honda India will release a motorcycle that can match if not beat the performance of the CBZ Extreme and the TVS Apache in this class. Repsol Honda coloring or not, they still are a bit ahead on the road.
I would have really liked to get some proper saddle time on the Unicorn, but I couldn’t as we were testing some other motorcycles too. I will try to get a follow up on this sometime soon as the motorcycle I rode is destined for life on the race track and I should be seeing it again sometime next month!
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‘2007/motorcycles/0528-honda_unicorn_gp/unicorn-grand-prix-1-t.jpg|center|Honda Unicorn Grand Prix Edition|0|Looks the part…|bottom|center|120\r\n2007/motorcycles/0528-honda_unicorn_gp/unicorn-grand-prix-2-t.jpg|center|New Honda Unicorn Sports|0|…if only it moved better…|bottom|center|120\r\n2007/motorcycles/0528-honda_unicorn_gp/unicorn-grand-prix-3-t.jpg|center|Grannd Prix Unicorn, Honda|0|Paint and stickering quality seems good.|bottom|center|120\r\n2007/motorcycles/0528-honda_unicorn_gp/unicorn-grand-prix-4-t.jpg|center|Unicorn Honda grand prix stickering|0|A few more BHP would have helped this bike|bottom|center|120\r\n2007/motorcycles/0528-honda_unicorn_gp/unicorn-grand-prix-5-t.jpg|center|Repsol Honda Unicorn Sports|0|A long story, wonder who did the copy|bottom|center|120\r\n2007/motorcycles/0528-honda_unicorn_gp/unicorn-grand-prix-6-t.jpg|center|Honda Unicorn Repsol Honda colours|0|Not much change in here…|bottom|center|120