From time to time you here of a model that never was, and yesterday what looked like a genuine brochure appeared on the internet for a never released prototype, the MVX400F.
Details are thin on the ground but it does appear on a google search and reading various translated pages you can piece together a picture of market in the early 80's which would of led to the project cancelation and on to the NS400R. The brochure mainly talks about the 400cc market, which was worth 79690 units per annum and the strong business case for producing a large capacity 2 stroke to support their 4 stroke inline 4 CBX and V4 VF models. With the addition of the MVX400 Honda would have a 400cc offering that would suit all tastes in Japans most popular category. The MVX400F had an identification code of NC14.
Timeline
1982, Honda started development of the MVX250F to complete against the RD and RG250 bikes, at the same time Yamaha started development on what would become the RD500.
1983, Honda released the MVX250F, and to capitalise on the NS500 race bike's success development started on Honda's largest 2 stroke the MVX400F.
1983, Yamaha changes the game with the Kenny Roberts inspired V4 500cc 2 stroke the RD500
1984, Yamaha introduced the alloy framed RZV500R specifically for the Japanese market, while Suzuki enter the race replica market with the RG500 and RG400 for Japan.
In addition to the new exciting rival race replicas, sales of the MVX250 were lower than expected and the engine had suffered reliability issues, and as Honda had another 250 2 stroke in development with the impressive new V twin NS250R the MVX was dropped. With the market shifting fast Honda knew the big bored MVX would be out-gunned and be less desirable than the new class of GP replicas they decided to cancel the MVX project completely. Honda knew they had to go all-out with a NS GP replica especially after winning the 1983 world championship and immediately shifted their resources to the NS400 project.
It has long been accepted that the NS400 engine started like as the MVX250 but with all the faults addressed, capacity increased and the addition of ATAC. Although all that is still technically true we now know there was an additional step in its development with the MVX400.
There are also references on some Japanese websites to a MVX350/400, maybe this would of been an RD350 rival but I cannot tell if the 350 was a development stage and had its displacement increased along the way or in fact they were just the same thing, after all we know the NS400 had a capacity of 386cc and a capacity of 373cc for South Africa (50 units using NS250 pistons). There is also a small reference to a MVX100 with a V configuration engine, now that would have been very special!
The NS400R was every bit of a race replica and now is a very desirable collectors bike, but things could of been very different!
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| a colorized version produced by a Japanese magazine |
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| The V3 sensation is even more exciting, the stunning super sprinter 400! |
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| The concept is one step closer to the race track |
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| add on '4th'exhaust silencer for the 250, is actually storage but is shown on the 400 |
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| The NS400R one of the 2 stroke 'holy trinity' |
