Four-Speed Trail Bike: 1971 Honda CT70 HKO
How many of you were alive in 1971? If you were and you were a kid, or a kid at heart, you may have wanted one of Honda’s new mini trail bikes. These were incredibly popular little motorcycles and the seller has this 1971 Honda CT70 HKO listed here on eBay in Washougal, Washington. The current bid price is $2,800 and there are two days left to get your bids in.
I called them a plain ol’ Honda 70 from the seat of my 1967 Yamaha YL-100 Twinjet. My brother and I never had a trail bike like a Honda CT70, we just put a knobby back tire and a bigger rear sproket on the Yamaha Twinjet and let’r rip through the trails. But, converting a twin-cylinder street bike into a trail bike wasn’t quite and same as having one designed by a major manufacturer to be a trail bike.
The Honda CT70 came out at basically the same time as the Honda CB750 and they’re two of Honda’s most-popular models of all time. The Honda CT70 came just after the famous monkey bike, the ZA50, and they were referred to as Dax, short for daschund for its unusual long body shape. They were made from 1969 to 1982 and then again from 1991 to 1994. The early models are the most valuable and they’ve been on the rise over the last few years. That’s a factory Honda luggage rack, by the way, and you can see a small tear in the original seat cover.
Looking like a scale model toy in the photo above, or maybe a giant human with a regular Honda CT70, that view is under the seat where you can see the battery, the original tool kit, and some original paint. Actually, the seller says that the wheels were repainted 15 years ago but they didn’t mention the Candy Topaz Orange paint. Is it original? It looks almost perfect to me, but there are a few small nicks if you look at the detailed photos.
The engine is Honda’s 72-cc six-horsepower single which the seller mentions, starts right up, idles as it should, and doesn’t smoke. The fun part of this one is that the “H” in its name designates a four-speed manual transmission rather than a three-speed auto-clutch transmission. It’s usually if not always more fun to shift for yourself when possible. Hagerty is at $7,300 for a #2 excellent condition CT70 HKO but nice ones can be found for much less and others for much more, which is usually the case. Have any of you owned a Honda CT70?
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Comments
My brother had one in 1972 I had a 50 mini trail those were good times in Miami back then.
Great thing is, we can always depend on Scotty to stir up memories from our( and his) past. Here’s a guy, folks, who truly never grew up. After he and I “grew up”, our lives took very different paths, but our youth has many glaring similarities, and motorcycles, big or small, were top on the list. We pixxed away many hours on these things, took many a lump, but t’was all in good fun. Fact is, injuries, if not too severe( they didn’t go fast enough) were like a rite of passage, you had to be cool to do that stuff. Today, I found out after falling off my bicycle( frame broke), did a number on my shoulder, one of the most serious injuries I’ve ever had in 60 years of 2 wheels, these days injuries heal slow, not to mention having to wipe with the other hand, isn’t as much fun as it once was. But these here early shenanigans built character, and most went on to a lifetime of motorcycle ownership to this day, mostly because of these humble beginnings and it’s the stories that are great to hear.
I always wanted one -still have brochures from the local motorcycle shop somewhere out in the garage. But alas, my parents could barely afford bicycles for us, much less motorcycles. I’m 6’4″ now so I imagine I’d look like a shriner clown on one now but I’d love to ride one just once – to satisfy that itch from 40+ years ago.
Just go do it Todd, i had one of those that i got for my girlfriends kids years ago for $275 used. I was raised by a divorced mom with not much $$ but had love, and used bicycles. Then i learned how to fix lawnmowers till i could buy my 1st minibike. I now have a new Coleman 200u-ex that i ride every 2 or 3 days. I am 6ft 5in and dont care what people think. Just go do it buddy!!! We live here once.
Thanks!
I was at the Great Minnesota State Fair this week. I was looking at what at first appeared to be a brand new one of these, but a closer inspection showed it to be a cheap Chinese rip off. Besides that, might be the way to go, going to be a lot cheaper and prob start and run for you. Sometimes being a purist is going to be expensive and heartbreaking for a person, just give in once in a while and have fun with something that is not the “real thing”. The only “real thing” I want at my age, is an ice cold Coca-Cola.
I remember tilting back the seat and trying to cram 15 cents worth of gas, would last an entire weekend, into the tank … good time(s) on many levels
I used to ride down to the local Texaco early on Sundays after my paper route and before they opened. I could fill my Mini Trail with what dribbled out of the pump hoses and it’d last me all week.
Not only was I alive, but I was lucky enough at 13 to buy this exact bike from Honda of San Francisco, down on Van Ness. I’d been saving my paper route money for years and had the sales brochure on my bedroom wall. I got the orange, my buddy bought the green, both 4-speeds (not that wimpy 3-speed semi-manual) and we were the biggest badasses on our block! I spent a lot of time riding the trails in the Sierra foothills on that little bike.
Hey Todd, i say go for it man. I am 65 and i got me a Coleman 200u-ex brand new and i ride it at least 3 times a week. I am 6ft 5in tall and i never care what people think. It never fails to put a smile on my face. Go ride your dream bike even if you have to rent it. If you buy it ………it is never gonna drop in value. In the wind buddy!!!!
Looks like it has the engine guards also. I didn’t have one but my best friend did, that was the start of motorcycle riding for me.
After college in 1972 my best friend got a new CT-70. a year or 2 later I bought a used one. With the handle bars folded down, I could squeeze it into the back seat of my 1971 AMC Gremlin-X. Once when driving across a field where the grass had been cut by a tractor, there was a dip in the ground where the mower passed over the dip with a straight cut. The small front wheel went into the dip and I flew over the handle bar rolling in the field and lucky the bike did not tumble into me. One handle bar was bent a little and I bent it back straight and continued riding. I could feel the bumps but recovered quickly in my mid 20’s. Now at 71 I wonder if some of my occasional lower back pain is the long-term effect of that fall. I sold the bike and bought a CT-90 with full size wheels. Then I bought bumper carriers that fit on the Gremlin’s old style large metal back bumper to carry it. The CT-90 was abandoned in my parents garage until my mom was selling the house in 2000. I pust some fresh gas in it but couldn’t start it as the old gas all evaporated and gummed up. It still looked good and I sold it I believe for $75.
Giving away my age (80’s), but I got one of these, new, which I still have. Orange, CT70H. Great fun.
Had a blue 1970. Great fun. Was made fun of though while riding. Teens, pulled up next to me and said: “ hey lard-ass, get a horse”!
A bit of a different story, but hopefully interesting. In the late 70s I was working on a 170′ yacht that was based in Lauderdale and spent summers in the Mediterranean. We bought four of these to be used by the guests and, as we spent most of our time in the Greek Islands and Turkey, they were popular.
Load them by davit into the tender and run them ashore and, off they went, no accidents ever, which amazed me.
I took one ashore one time as we needed a water pump bearing for the engine of a Cigarette we had aboard, after a long ride around the countryside, ai was directed to a farm where I managed to buy a used SKF bearing and, back to the boat, where it was cleaned up,installed, and the Cigarette ran fine for the rest of the season. Great bikes 😁
I had a green 1971 4 speed. Learned how to drive a manual, race, pop a wheelie, and the proper way to wipe out. All on this little bike! Good times!
Alive, a teenager, and owned one. Luckily (or not) back in the day Nebraska allowed you to get your farm-to-school-to-work-to-farm license at 14 to drive anything you wanted – and this is what I wanted and bought (again, paper route money saved) in the Summer of ’72. School started for my freshman year, and I was loving life and the attention it got at school, riding the 3 miles down the dirt road into town for school and back every day. This is NOT what I wanted come about late October when there weren’t enough clothes in the county to keep me warm. “Dad, can I borrow the pickup today to drive to school?” I was back on the bus most of the rest of the school year. Ah, the poor decisions we make at that age…..
Great memories!!!! My brother and I shared the same exact bike back in the early 70’s. Our Dad would hide the key until he got home to make sure we finished our homework…. We found that a paperclip would work equally well as the key!! Great times!
Always starts 1st kick, even after years! $7,500.00 wouldn’t take mine away!!!You realize it’s the only street legal minibike umm, EVER!
I am near 80 and purchased an 82 last week.
I have little recollection of1971, I turned a whole 5 years old then,,, but motorcycles here in southern California, particularly offroad, were all over the place, including these odd looking Honda’s, Hodaka’s, BSA powered desert racers, all kinds of stuff. No, I never owned one of these, a few years later it was all about the XR75,,, an incredible mini cycle. Those were great times.
Nice! I have fond memories of the Trail 90 we had back in the 60s. Great bike, but I also had a Tote Goat that could go where the 90 couldn’t! Guess I had the best of both worlds. I used the Tote Goat to run up and down the beaches and collect Japanese Glass floats that showed up from the Winter storms. Great fun to have when you are in the Alaskan bush!
I am rebuilding a 1970 Honda CT 70H , Candy Topaz Orange right now , exactly like the one in this article. These little bikes are awesome. I had my first Ruby Red when I was 12 . And now I am 58 and still have the fever. Glad to see that a lot of people still do too ! Great article,