Historic road and race Honda museum opens in the heart of Rome
The new collection features rare Honda road bikes, like the NR750, as well as classic Grand Prix and World Superbike machinery.
After months of preparation, polishing, planning and probably a fair bit of caffeine, Honda Moto Roma finally cut the ribbon on its brand-new Honda Classic Museum — a purpose-built space dedicated to the most important and beautiful motorcycles ever to wear the winged badge. Think of it as Honda’s greatest hits album… only louder and on two wheels.
Honda marked the occasion with the arrival of key figures from its European and global operations. Among the guests were Mr. Okuda, President of Honda Motor Europe; Mr. Kawahara, General Manager of Honda Motor Company; Rui Rosa, Commercial Director; and Mr. De Jaeger, Vice President of Honda Motor Company. They were joined by Honda representatives Vito Cicchetti and William Armuzzi, both General Managers of Honda Motor Europe Ltd. Italy. In short, if you’d dropped a torque wrench at this event, it would’ve hit someone important.
The day kicked off with a full tour of Honda Moto Roma’s vast facility, which is claimed to be the largest Honda dealership in Europe. Guests got a look inside the megastore, workshop, rooftop and the soon-to-be-renovated adjacent building. Guests were guided personally by the Del Gaudio family, who’ve played a central role in bringing the project to life.
When the big moment came, it was Mr. Okuda himself who joined the owners at the museum entrance to cut the ribbon — and before stepping inside, left his signature as a lasting marker of the occasion.
The museum features MotoGP machinery once ridden by Nicky Hayden, Loris Capirossi, Max Biaggi and Wayne Gardner, along with several championship-winning Superbikes. The line-up will rotate over time, ensuring visitors always have something new to discover.
At the centre of the new museum is the mystical NR750, Honda’s oval-piston experiment that remains one of the most ambitious engineering projects in motorcycle history. Developed as a technical experiment rather than a commercial product, it featured oval pistons (as found on Honda NR500 Grand Prix bikes), eight valves per cylinder and an engineering approach more akin to Formula 1 than road biking. It wasn’t built to win races or dominate sales, but to prove what was mechanically possible — and in doing so, it became one of Honda’s most ambitious and distinctive projects.
The NR750 on display isn’t just a museum piece. In 1993, Loris Capirossi used this very bike at the Nardò high-speed track to claim two Guinness World Records: 186.30 mph over the flying mile, and an average of 176.19 mph across 10 miles from a standing start. For a machine once considered more prototype than production, it delivered performance that still raises eyebrows.
Alongside the NR750 sit the machines of Nicky Hayden, Max Biaggi, Wayne Gardner, Loris Capirossi, and SBK World Champions past and present. And here’s the best bit — the line-up will evolve over time, with bikes swapped on rotation so the museum always feels fresh.
The Honda Classic Museum will soon open its doors to the public. That means anyone will be able to walk through Honda’s history — from dirt to dyno, from concepts to champions — all inside a clean, elegant, dedicated space.
You can find out more about the museum on the official website.
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Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
