Officially, it's called the "Honda Collection Hall", but everyone knows it as the Motegi museum.
Situated on the sprawling grounds of the Twin Ring Motegi racing circuit complex in the rural Haga District of the Tochigi prefecture a few hours north of Tokyo, the museum houses a number of collections on the upper floors. The second floor for street-legal machinery is split into two wings; one side is motorcycles, the other side autos and power products.
It's the third floor everyone comes for. Half the floor is dedicated to Honda race cars, which includes the iconic models from Honda's long history in Formula One. The other side houses not only Honda's legendary race bikes, but also many of the landmark race bikes of all time. In all, there are 246 motorcycles in the collection, with each holding a unique place in the history of motorcycling.
The attention to detail in the restoration work is exquisite-and not only on the older machinery. Dani Pedrosa's 2008 Repsol Honda RC212V is displayed with the canister of compressed air that pressurizes the pneumatic valve system.
This year the museum added a special display to celebrate Honda's 50th anniversary in Grand Prix racing. And, in keeping with the harsh economic times, they had only a modest celebration on the Friday of the Japanese MotoGP weekend.
All of current Honda MotoGP riders, including Repsol Honda's Pedrosa and teammate Andrea Dovizioso, attended. But interestingly, only three non-current riders were invited. Naomi Taniguchi, the now 73-year-old who earned Honda's first point in GP racing on the Isle of Man in 1959, looked fit enough to race. He was joined by Kunimitsu Takahashi, Honda's first Japanese-born GP winner on the 250cc RC162 in West Germany in 1961. And the rider who represented Honda from the modern era wasn't five-time 500cc World Champion Mick Doohan; it was a champion whose talent burned brightly but briefly.
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