Japanese-origin classic and youngtimer motorcycles.
In 1969 Honda's CB750 rewrote the rules — four cylinders, a front disc brake and electric start at a price that undercut everything from Europe. Within five years Kawasaki's Z1, Suzuki's two-strokes and Yamaha's twins had turned Japan from imitator to pace-setter. The Japanese classic era is the story of relentless engineering escalation: more cylinders, more revs, more reliability, lower prices — the combination that broke the British industry and redefined what a motorcycle could be.
Origin: Japan · era roughly 1969–1999 · the machines that industrialised performance.
The original superbike, 1969.
Out-gunned everything, 1972.
Homologation art, 1988.
Below: every constituent with live pricing plotted along the € axis. Each amber mark is one model's current median price.
| Years | Liquidity | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Models are assigned to R-JPN by marque origin, era and segment. Every tracked model with sufficient listings contributes.
For each constituent we compute a monthly median from observed European listings and auction results, requiring at least three observations in a month before a median is published — thin months are left blank rather than estimated.
R-JPN is equal-weighted across constituents with published medians, rebased to 100 at its base month. The index level moves via chain-linking: month-to-month it reflects the price change of constituents present in both months.
Where the index has few months of overlapping data, its level stays near its base and we say so. Index history deepens as our weekly collection accumulates — we show current composition until the series is meaningful.
Full methodology paper available free in Reports.