Honda ‘Confident’ CB1000 Hornet Will Arrive in 2024

Launched at the EICMA show in Milan last November, the Honda CB1000 Hornet unified the Japanese marque’s expansive range of naked street bikes.

Still utilising a version of the inline four-cylinder engine as has been found in previous generation Fireblades, it offered a more cost-effective and more road-focused entry into 1,000cc Honda ownership than the CB1000R and CBR1000RR-R. 

The timeline of its launch at EICMA and its denotation on the press release as a 24YM (YM meaning Year Model) all pointed to a launch at some point this year. That hasn’t happened yet, and while that might be surprising - Honda has, after all, launched most of its other new and updated bikes already in 2024 - that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not still happening. 

German website Motorrad has reported on the model's apparent postponement until 2025, citing ‘research’ undertaken by the outlet, adding that ‘The reasons for the delay are not yet known’. While you could argue that they are speaking about the German market only, manufacturers do tend to group together countries within a large region such as Europe. To find out specifically from a UK standpoint whether the bike is delayed or not, we reached out to a Honda UK spokesperson. They confirmed that the Honda CB1000 Hornet is “still currently listed as a 24YM bike and we're confident it'll be with us towards the end of this year.”

A winter launch is more in keeping with standard practice, and with a large number of new models already released into the wild (CBR600RR, Fireblade, CB650R, CBR650R and E-Clutch models) it could simply be that Honda Europe is looking to put some distance between those new and updated models and this all-new and quite important naked, based on a wholly new engine and chassis platform.

There is another theory flying around the Visordown office though, and it centres around Honda having both a CB1000R and CB1000 Hornet in the range. We were always advised that for ‘some time’ both litre nakeds would co-exist, but that ultimately the new Hornet would supersede the more custom-looking and pricier CB1000R. That viewpoint may have now changed, and Honda could be looking to run-out CB1000R production and have a clean slate for the new 1,000cc Hornet. That is, though, just a theory, and we’ll have to wait until the autumn of 2024 to find out for sure.