James May’s Honda Fireblade Is Up For Auction. And Captain Slow Clearly Has A Type
Nothing says sensible British gentleman like a 160-mile-per-hour superbike from the '90s.
James May may have built an entire television persona around moving at the speed of a mildly concerned librarian, but his taste in motorcycles tells a very different story. One of his former bikes is currently up for auction, and it happens to be an early Honda CBR900RR Fireblade, a motorcycle created specifically to make the superbikes of the early 1990s look bloated, confused, and late to their own party.
The current bid sits at $5,600, which seems remarkably reasonable for a first-generation Fireblade with celebrity ownership and a documented history.
It isn’t some untouched museum piece that spent three decades staring at a climate-controlled wall. This one has covered 13,784 miles, picked up a few cosmetic blemishes, and appears to have been used as Honda intended. That may actually make it more appealing to anyone who wants to ride the thing without experiencing chest pains every time a bug hits the fairing.
Honda launched the CBR900RR in Europe in 1992, with the model reaching the US for the 1993 model year. Engineer Tadao Baba’s mission was to combine open-class performance with the mass and agility of a middleweight. Instead of chasing the biggest horsepower number, Honda focused heavily on cutting weight, producing a superbike that didn’t fit neatly into the established displacement classes of the time.
The original Fireblade used an 893cc inline-four producing around 124 horsepower and 65 pound-feet of torque. Top speed was roughly 160 miles per hour, which was plenty exciting when paired with a wet weight of around 450 pounds. It was less than 10 pounds heavier than Honda’s contemporary CBR600 and approximately 100 pounds lighter than many of the liter-class motorcycles it competed against.
They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To
Honda achieved that figure through a combination of clever engineering and borderline obsessive dieting. The Fireblade used a lightweight frame, conventional forks instead of heavier inverted units, and a controversial 16-inch front wheel. Even the fairing’s distinctive drilled nose contributed to the weight-saving theme, while also making the bike look like it had survived a very precise shotgun blast.
This particular example was purchased new in Spain in 1993 before being transported to the UK in a crate and registered there. It's had four previous owners, with the most famous being James May of Top Gear and The Grand Tour. May reportedly acquired the bike from the David Silver Honda Collection Museum in 2013 before later consigning it through DH Superbikes, with the current listing live on Iconic Motorbike Auctions.
The bike comes with a detailed service-history folder that reportedly tracks its movements from new. It received a recommissioning service in March 2026 at a cost of £1,070, or roughly $1,400. The work included new tires, fluid replacement, and carburetor servicing. It was also detailed and ceramic-coated, because even a motorcycle associated with Captain Slow deserves to arrive looking reasonably presentable.
It currently rides on Bridgestone Battlax Hypersport S21 tires manufactured in 2025. The wheels have been refinished in white, while the original black silencer has been replaced with a silver OEM unit. Two ignition keys are included, and the seller reports no known mechanical problems.
There are cosmetic imperfections, but that’s hardly a tragedy. In fact, they may be the best part of the listing. This is a historically important superbike with an amusing ownership story, but it isn’t too precious to use. You could add it to a collection, park it beside something painfully pristine, or simply ride it and enjoy one of the motorcycles that permanently changed how superbikes were designed.
At $5,600 and counting, that’s a lot of 1990s Honda legend for the money. It also proves that beneath James May’s sensible shirts and carefully measured vocabulary lives a man who was apparently quite happy owning a 160-mile-per-hour motorcycle.
Source: Iconic Motorbike Auctions
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