Honda Motosport

Honda invented the street scrambler concept with its 1962 CL-72, a street motorcycle with dirt-bike styling and a little better off-road capability than the purely street models of the day. Americans had begun to discover the safer and more athletic joys of trail riding even before the CL-72 was introduced. My introduction to off-road riding was on the Harley-Davidson Super 10 in 1960 or '61, just a couple of years prior to the release of H-D's own trail models, the Scat and Sprint H. Trail riding in America was a slowly growing sport until Yamaha put everybody and his hound dog on knobby tires with its 250cc DT-1 in 1968. The Enduro came with trials universal tires, of course, but many riders changed to real knobbies as soon as the original tires were worn out. The Enduro proceded to have babies the following year and soon trails everywhere were being torn up by 90cc - 360cc Enduros, as well as their motocross brothers. Honda's first response to the ring-ding onslaught was the Motosport SL series, a line of bikes that were too heavy to really stomp the Yamahas into the dirt, but they certainly had long-lasting, sweet-sounding engines and the legendary Honda bullet-proof reliability.

Here is a basic listing and description of the SL models:

SL-350's had candy paint, silver frames, flat-black exhausts, Ceriani-style front forks, and exposed rear springs.

SL-175's had two-into-one exhausts, silver frames, body-color fenders, kickstarters, and Ceriani-style front forks.

SL-125's had tachometers, kickstarters, painted steel fenders, and flat-black exhaust pipes with chrome shields.

SL-100's had flat-black exhausts with chrome shields, kickstarters, and body-colored, steel fenders.

SL-90's had upswept exhausts, 19" front wheels, kickstarters, and horizontal cylinders. Note: Some SL-90's may have had black frames, as shown in the '69 Honda brochure. According to my own personal recollection, I rode a friend's SL-90 in 1969, and it had a black frame. The first silver-framed SL I remember encountering was another friend's SL-350 of several months later. The SL-90 was the first SL model released, and it is the only one showing a black frame in the brochure. Since we are discussing my memory of more than thirty-five years ago, it is quite possible that I am just plain wrong on this issue.

SL-70's had black exhausts with chrome shields, double-downtube frames, and body-colored fenders.