Honda NTV, Revere and Deauville

The Honda NTV was introduced in 1988 as a follow-up model for the VT 500, to recapture some of the success of the legendary CX 500 series. In a way this makes the NTV the last shaftdrive UJM.
The original NTV650 (sold in some markets as "Honda Revere") was a naked bike with a 57 horsepower 650cc water cooled V-Twin engine, mounted in the traditional position with one cylinder in front of the other, and a technologically advanced single-sided swingarm suspension known as "Pro Arm".
The engine shares many similarities with those in other Honda V-Twin models like Africa Twin, Shadow or Bros/Hawk. In fact, the Bros/Hawk series sold in North America and Japan is in many ways simply a chain-drive version of the NTV.
The bikes have a reputation for extreme reliability, with many examples covering in excess of 250,000 miles without any major repairs. Once things go wrong however, the revere is not an easy bike to work on! How about removing the water cooling system just to change a spark plug?

With some minor modifications, the NTV/Revere was in production for until 1997, when Honda launched the NT650V Deauville touring model. The Deauville forms a logical evolution of the NTV, continuing many of the same features such as engine and suspension, while introducing technological advances such as ABS combined brakes, electronic fuel injection and exhaust catalyzer along with rider comfort improvements like a full fairing and hard luggage. From 2006 the Deauville received a reworked engine design of 65 horsepower and 680cc and was renamed to NT700V.