HONDA'S CBR600RR will live on in 2019 despite being dropped from the firm’s range in Europe.
The market for 600cc supersports bikes has taken a pounding over the last few years, with customers staying away in droves from the aging models offered by former class stalwarts like Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha and Kawasaki. Rising prices since the financial crisis a decade ago haven’t helped, and we’re now in a situation where virtually all the former 600-class sports bikes have been withdrawn from the European market. Euro4 emissions rules and changes including mandatory ABS brakes have made it impossible to keep the old models on sale without significant updates.
At the moment, only Yamaha has made the investment to do so, with its YZF-R6, although Kawasaki will be back in the 600 market in 2019 with a revamped, 636cc ZX-6R. Suzuki might return, too, although information on the GSX-R600’s future is still hazy.
But we do know that Honda’s CBR600RR will remain in production next year – the 2019 model has been registered with American’s California Air Resources Board (CARB). Unfortunately for those hoping to see the model return to the European market, the documents show that its exhaust emissions are unchanged compared to the previous version, suggesting it’s not going to be made Euro4 compliant for 2019.
In fact, the chances are that the 2019 CBR600RR sold in America will be completely unchanged, with the exception of the inevitable Bold New Colours (sorry, ‘Colors’ for our American cousins.)
There is one minor note on that, though. The CARB document is mainly concerned with emissions, but it also states vehicle weight, using an ‘estimated inertial mass’ measurement that’s intended to represent a typical loaded bike including its rider. For some reason, the 2019 version of the non-ABS is listed as being 10kg lighter than it was last year, with an EIM of 270kg rather than 280kg. It’s 99% certain that the weight has simply been reassessed, or may even be a typo – the ABS version keeps its previous EIM of 280kg – but there’s a slim, outside chance that the revised weight reflects an actual change in the bike’s design.
