1988 Honda NT650 Hawk GT
Miles: 11,295
Comes with owner’s manual
Clean Title
Located in Bradenton, FL
$3,100 OBO
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SELLER
Classic 1988 Honda NT650 Hawk GT in excellent condition. Actual milage as shown, 11,295. Always garaged and well maintained. Recent maintenance items numerous to ensure best condition.
Florida title no liens. Owner’s manual included.
Fuel tank in excellent condition, Caswell Sealed inside, original paint on all body parts. Slight scuff in paint on rear of cowling by the taillight-see photo.
Single sided swingarm and aluminum box tubing frame ahead of its time.
M4 exhaust system not too loud but provides big performance improvement.
Better fork springs also installed as well as new chain and sprockets.
OEM parts removed are included in box, exhaust system in very good condition, stock fork springs, rear turn signals and passenger peg brackets with footpads.
This machine requires no work- just start the engine and ride.
Serious inquiries only.
Located in Bradenton, FL
RSBFS
We’ve seen a few of these here on RSBFS and back in 2019 Tad did a great job describing the bike. “Styled like a Japanese Ducati Monster, Honda’s Hawk GT actually beat that bike to market by several years. It may have lacked a bit of sex appeal, but offered incredible versatility, reliability, and even some steering lock… The Hawk could scratch, commute, do some light-duty touring and, with a bit of work, made a great basis for a race bike. They’ve been extremely affordable for a while now, since they never really found an audience here in the US and are a bit too practical to be considered sexy, but fans love them, and low mileage examples like this one are pretty hard to find.
It was built around a simple, reliable 647cc 52° v-twin engine with liquid-cooling and three valves per cylinder. It was so reliable, in fact, it would go on to power thousands and thousands of Honda’s shaft-drive Revere and Deauville touring bikes. Hardly the most inspiring legacy, but it could push the little Hawk GT, also known as the NT650 in some markets and the Bros 650 in Japan, to a top speed of 107mph.
But the Hawk GT, aka NT650 aka Bros 650 had another designation: the RC31 and Honda’s competition legacy is visible if you look. Out back is the bike’s party piece, a Elf-Racing Pro-Arm single-sided swingarm. The front end had just one disc brake, but the bike’s relatively light 393lb dry weight meant stopping was adequate outside a race track, and a CBR600 front end with adjustable forks and an extra front disc and caliper is a popular swap.”
This one has just over 11k miles, which is not bad for a 36 year old bike. It seems to be in great shape with an attractive price.
Good luck to the buyer and seller!
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Any carbed bike doesn’t magically get more hp for a freer flowing = louder exhaust. It has to be jetted right. This bike likely has, but it isn’t mentioned. I’m happy not being heard by the Popos with my stock exhaust, and further happy it doesn’t exceed dB limits of my state.
The Sv650 ended up hitting the mark this bike missed a decade later. The engine on this bike was a rather confused choice. This was the first naked sportbike, arriving a year earlier than the CB400F honda released in 89. Another bike I owned and love to this day. Side note: the speedo on the honda CB-1 went to only 115 mph IIRC, inline with its actual speed potential. I chuckle at the pick above of a 145mph speedo. As kids when visiting a shop, we always compared how high the speedos went when rating what we saw. Youth….
This engine also appeared in Honda’s Pacific Coast tourer (I also had one of those) featuring 800 displacement (roughly) but even less charisma. i don’t recall Honda using these bones in any other models. I don’t recall Honda having a powerplant in 88 that could have put the frosting on the cake for this.
This time period was before ducati reached maturity with sporting v-twins. A decade later Suzuki really expanded the category with the SV650 with simplicty, upgradeability and a price point that finally scratched the itch.
Don’t get me wrong this bike is exceptional. I would have loved if Honda preceeded the RC-30 with an RC31 featuring an oval-piston v-twin though. Love the frame, swingarm and nakedness of this. The engine would have been the cherry on top. Doublefull they could have produced it even for $25k back then. Fun to imagine.
Had a Tanzanite Blue 88’ myself. Jetted with a Kerker White Tip – the midrange and low end throttle response improved after the install. We did a 900RR rear shock and F3 clip ons. Absolute blast when the road tightened up, ran out of breath when riding with liter bikes. Enjoyed the heck out of it.
I believe the 88’s were offered here in Tanzanite Blue and Tempest Grey. The red on the bike posted would be from 89’-91’. Someone changed out the bodywork perhaps.
Looks like the true blue 88 model just went up on bringatrailer.com Nice tie in to this post and veefores knowledge shared here.