Honda's amazing motorbike-engined roadster concept needs to be made real

Clearly Honda's immediate priority should be to halt production of everything, and focus instead on building Jenson and Fernando a decent F1 engine. However, we’ll forgive them a quick lapse in this strategy, because this new ‘2&4’ concept is, frankly, quite excellent.

It’s been revealed today, here, ahead of a public debut at the upcoming Frankfurt Motor Show. We’re told it’s the winner of Honda’s global design project, and marries the worlds of motorbikes and cars.

Inspiration for the 2&4’s design comes from Honda’s quite beautiful RA272 Formula One car from 1965 – we’ve included a pic of it in the gallery above because, well, it’s lovely. You’ll also spot that excellent single-seat design, suspended, says Honda, as a sort of ‘floating seat’ to provide the freedom of a bike but security of a car.

The whole thing measures 3 metres in length, stands less than a metre high and takes up 1.8m of width. It also weighs just 405kg, which means its mid-mounted engine certainly makes its presence felt.

That engine is – unlike the RA272 F1 car – a motorbike engine. Specifically, the 999cc V4 four-stroke built for Honda’s MotoGP bike. It’s fitted low in the car, and produces 212bhp at 13,000rpm – with a redline at 14,000rpm. 14,000rpm!

A motorbike-spec 87lb ft of torque is delivered at 10,500rpm, reaching the rear wheels through a six-speed DCT gearbox. No performance figures have been issued. We suspect they'll be rather impressive.

“Honda Project 2&4 seeks to create an intense driving experience by combining the most thrilling elements of riding a motorcycle with the most engaging characteristics of driving a car,” Honda tells us.

We’ll bring you more pictures of the 2&4 next week once we’ve seen it for real. You want one though, right?