Honda Steed

The Honda Steed was a series of cruiser motorcycles that Honda sold in Japan from 1988, developed as the first full American-style cruiser the company had made. It was offered in 400 cc and 600 cc versions that shared one frame and body, the 400 using an engine derived from the NV400 and the 600 using the engine of the Transalp 600V, with styling that follows the Harley-Davidson form, cooling fins cast to look air-cooled, twin tapered exhausts on the right and a tiller-bar handlebar. Sales were slow at first but grew strongly from about 1993, and about 80,000 were shipped over roughly ten years. Variants included the VLX, VCL, VSE and the spring-fork VLS of 1998, and the line was finally absorbed into the Shadow series in the early 2000s.