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Bought a 1985 Honda Magna for just 400 dollars: My experience so far

18th February 2024, 16:09 by Ananth Iyer

After a lot of back and forth negotiations, we settled on a price of 400$. Yes you read that right. All that hunk of a bike, for 400$ dollars.

BHPian saitvsk recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Part Zero : Welcome!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, hello again.

The last time I had started a thread, it was about my 2011 Honda CBR 250R C-ABS, which I fondly named her as "Phoenix". Getting her to proper condition was no less than a proper shot film style storyline, and it has all worked out well in the end. And a full year later, its seen a lot of positive response, comments, questions and what not. But since that one year, there have been major changes in my life, and for sometime, the freedom of being on two wheels has taken a back seat. And hopefully, I wish to be back on the road soon enough, just in time for summer!

Let's pick up with where I had left off the last time.

The last time I had taken out my CBR was when I had gone out with my friends, back home in India. And since then, my dad has been taking care of it. The following pic is one of the last ones I had taken before I left home.

And in August of 2023, I had left home to the United States of America to pursue my masters in Automotive and Mobility Systems Engineering. Since then, not having my motorcycle led to a great pain of feeling restricted and handicapped, not able to go out much and all. And then, one day, I found something in the corner of my eye when I was out with a friend. I'll be continuing this in the next part.

Part One : Introduction and the Name

It was October of 2023, been 2 months since I've landed in the USA and Detroit is a place of all cars, and no public transport. And my roommate was looking to buy a car. While searching for good deals, we found a decently used 2012 Ford Focus Sedan within our budget. And we decided to have a look at this car and went to the used car dealership. We took a look at the car and drove it around, found it to be good enough and came back to the dealer's lot. And while just looking around, I found something sitting in a corner. I decided to walk up to it and check it out what it was. In all its glory, there was an old big 80's Japanese Cruiser motorcycle just sitting all by itself, looking all big and handsome, waiting to be rescued. Atleast that's how I saw it. In that instant, I didn't know much about the bike and just inquired about it from the dealership owner. He said he had no clue about it, and well, things in my mind started to go off.

After all, it was a big nice motorcycle, god knows why it was left out. I was told that the bike had a clean title and was sellable, all original mileage and I virtually saw no signs of abuse, just typical wear due to its age and outside conditions. Till December, the idea was just a blurb in the back of my head and was just floating around. Just before Christmas, I gathered the courage of going again to the lot and taking more pics of the motorcycle. By then, I had done my research of that particular motorcycle line and armed myself with all the possible information. And then we set out to the lot with my roommate and went upto the bike and started assessing its condition. pulled out all the junk around it, put it on the main stand and assessed it thoroughly. Definitely needed some time, energy and resources to get it back running properly on the road. I'm gonna attach the first set of pics that I ever took of the bike.

And as per all the info I had armed myself with, it was a 1984 Honda Magna V65. Here is where it clicked for me. Its a liquid cooled V4 DOHC engine, 1098cc by design (65 cubic inches in displacement, hence the 65 in V65), shaft driven motorcycle. It was basically touted as a Harley killer, and the Japanese took a lot of pride in this factor. And now I can say that I own a very ancient and an ethnically distant precursor to the Diavel!

About the Magna :

These Magnas were originally introduced in 1982, with the V45 and V65 coming first onto the American Soil. The V65's smaller sibling, the V45 Magna (similarly specced V4 45 cubic inch-750cc) was actually targeted at the then poorly made Harley Davidson's motorcycles, which was owned by AMF, a bowing arcade company. They had bought out HD when it was in deep financial trouble in 1969, after facing all the onslaughter from the British and Japanese motorcycles. Owing to such fierce competition in the 80's from superior motorcycles, Harley Davidson had applied for tariff protection on their bikes, which resulted in higher tariffs on bikes above 700cc. The US government (Reagan Era Govt) imposed tariff rate hikes for foreign-built motorcycles over 700 cc in order to combat their rise in sales in North America, and to aid the domestic motorcycle manufacturers, namely Harley-Davidson. So for 1984 Honda responded by reducing the engine size for the VF750s to 698 cc by decreasing stroke on all of their 750cc engines, so the Magna became the VF700C in the USA.

One amusing thing is that, these motorcycles were built in Honda's Ohio plant. So technically they were still domestically manufactured. And to put it in simpler words, the Magna was one such motorcycle which had Harley by its Davidsons!

As I thoroughly believe, a brilliant ad can even sell a stone to a soldier! So here's the TV commerical for the V65 Magna, in all its glory

Basic Specs : 116HP, 95NM torque @7500 RPM, liquid cooled V4 1098cc - 65 cubic inch, shaft driven, anti-dive TRAC front suspension, FOIL alarm system (defunct), dual front disc brakes, digital coolant temp and gear position indicator.

Why the name Buster Magna Wolf ?

Growing up, almost all of us have watched shows which have idealised a bunch of superheroes! For the elder generation, it might be He-Man, GI Joe, or any other cartoon show. Well, for me, it was shows like Power Rangers SPD, Power Rangers Jungle Fury, and my personal favourite - Madan Senki Ryukendo, which all originate from the Tokusatsu type of Japanese media - one which involves the usage of special effects to compliment the storytelling. Ryukendo involved 3 superheroes - Ryukendo (swordsman), Ryugango (gunman), and Ryujino (archer) which protect the town of Akebono, Japan from the evil force of Jamanga, which feed off from the negative energy generated by creating fear among the town residents.

Each madan warrior has a spirit animal, which is capable of transforming into a transport vehicle, that can also act as combining power during finishing attacks. My personal idol was Ryugango, as his outfit stood out the most to me, his general demeanor was very slick and suave, and most important of all, his spirit animal was a wolf, which was officially known as Buster Wolf. This was after his evolution into the Magna Ryugango, and hence it is known as Buster Magna Wolf. And the cherry on top, his Wolf turned into a motorcycle that very closely resembled a Cruiser Motorcycle.

I'll attach pics of that too, to go with the flow of this section.

Magna Ryugango, Buster Wolf JuuOu (spirit) in the motorcycle form and the Transformation Key

The next section will document all the things I've done to it to slowly bring it back, including one huge foolish mistake that bought the project to an effective halt.

Part Two : Getting the Magna Home, fixes and a mistake

Once I had completely checked the bike out, I was sold on the idea of getting it home. And I went in to make a deal with the dealership owner regarding the bike. After a lot of back and forth negotiations, we settled on a price of 400$. Yes you read that right. All that hunk of a bike, for 400$ dollars. Apparently, he had misplaced the key of the bike, so we made another deal. If he found the key to the bike, it would be mine for 450$. If not, I would be taking it home for 400$. And we shook hands on it. I had made this deal in late December and promised to take it home by Mid January of 2024.

Come mid January, I was ready with the cash I needed to get the bike. I signed a few documents, and the title was transferred to my name after paying the money and sales tax. Since the bike was in non running condition (dead battery and no keys-luckily the handle wasn't locked), the seller offered to drop off the bike at my home for another 50$. I said yes and it took a humongous effort to load up the bike in the back of the seller's Ford Ranger Raptor truck.