Jazeel Mehta Has Three Hondas, One Regret, and a Garage Full of Stories

Back in the summer of ’69, Honda – recognised then as a maker of small capacity commuter-friendly motorcycles — did what no one expected the Japanese company to do. It launched the motorcycle that would break the backs of the British and American big bikes in the US and spark a Japanese superbike war that would last well into the 2010s. Say hello to the Honda CB750 K0. Only 7,414 units were ever made with their distinctive sandcast engines before Honda transitioned to die-casting the motors of their motorcycles. Not many are known to survive, and the ones that do are highly sought after, which means Mumbai’s Jazeel Mehta has an ace in his garage. 

“My school was at Nepean Sea Road. So sometimes, I would see a Honda passing by. Old red, twin-barreled Honda. It had a very distinctive sound. I learnt to recognise that,” Mehta remembers. “It was always there at the back of my mind, and sometimes I would dream of the motorcycle.”

Mehta’s very special Honda CB750 K0 came from the garage of a well-known collector. Although the previous owner was not known for parting with items from his garage, Mehta kept upping the ante till he could get it. Over the years, he has also collected a 1979 Honda CBX with its distinctive six-cylinder engine and a Honda Goldwing.

Although his three Hondas occupy pride of place in his garage now, Mehta, like so many others, started his motorcycle riding life astride a Royal Enfield Bullet. “After I started my job at the bank, I saved up and got myself a motorcycle. It was a Royal Enfield Bullet, bought straight from the showroom,” he says. Unfortunately, his new bike outweighed his rookie riding skills, and it soon ended in a crash.

“At that time, I had this idea that to reduce speed, the best thing to do would be to pull the clutch in and free the wheel from the engine. I didn’t know better,” he chuckles. On his way to work, he came in hot towards a climb that also had a turn at the summit. Sure enough, he pulled in the clutch, lost complete control, and ended up on a footpath. Thankfully, both he and his motorcycle remained injury-free, but the lesson learned was a valuable one. “That’s when I started asking about and learning.”

After buying his Bullet, Mehta started noticing other motorcycles on the roads of Mumbai. “There used to be a lot of BSAs in Bombay in those days,” he says. Eventually, he would sell his Bullet and get himself a BSA, which inevitably meant a change of mechanic. “Now I started going to a mechanic who had a garage full of British bikes. He was good to me and would explain things to me. When I asked if I should get a Honda, he told me that it was a Japanese bike and wouldn’t last,” he tells me. 

So, he stayed with British motorcycles for a while, but then he was hit by the BMW bug. “At my mechanic’s one day, there was a guy who had come from Chennai with a BMW. That’s the first time I saw one. I asked my mechanic if I should get one, but he told me it would be very expensive,” he remembers. The impression was that this was a good bike, so Mehta wanted one. And he would get one too, except for the small snag that there were no BMWs available in Mumbai. 

Although Mehta was employed, first by a bank and then by the Indian Railways, he was actually a weightlifter. As a young boy, he used to visit the local gym with his friends, where a chance meeting with a bunch of weightlifters from the Indian Railways changed his life. His transformation from a man who dreamed big but had to settle for small initially to a national champion and then finishing in the top ten in his category at the 1992 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, Australia, is a story that needs a full chapter and a half.

Most would have stopped there, but not Mehta. When he realised that he couldn’t carry on with the sport of weightlifting forever, he switched to shooting. He took the gold medal in the Standard Pistol event at the National Championship and bronze medals in the Air Pistol and Centre Fire events.

When Mehta was actively representing the Indian Railways at weightlifting, he would travel wherever the national championship competitions were taking place. On one such trip to Ernakulam, the weightlifter saw his first Honda, a compact 125cc twin-cylinder machine. It was love at first sight. “It had metallic paint, two cylinders, twin exhausts, and an electric start. I just wanted it,” he recalls. 

Deal done, the bike travelled to Mumbai in the train with Mehta and his weightlifting companions. He enjoyed riding it to his heart’s content. However, with the arrival of the Indo-Japanese motorcycle collaborations like the Yamaha RX 100 by Escorts or the CD 100 by Hero Honda, Mehta feared that his little Honda would lose value and that made him part with the machine. A decision he regrets to this day. Mehta also got himself an RX 100, but that was stolen after sometime and that’s when he decided that he must have a nice big Honda again.

“I got myself a Honda VT 250. It was called an Integra — a beautiful bike that could go up to 150kmph. The old road to the airport was the only place you could really open it up,” he says. Eventually, the VT 250 was ridden to the point of no return. For a while, Mehta owned no motorcycle. Then one day, passing through Mahim, he spotted a BSA and an unfamiliar mechanic. "He told me the A7 was the best BSA to own — not the Shooting Star, the A7, which is exactly what he had to sell. Essentially, he was conning me into buying it."

Mehta’s A7 was also his entry into the world of vintage and classic motorcycles. His mechanic had talked him into participating in one of the vintage and classic rallies, and that’s where he met others and saw lots of bikes and realised that there was a real craze for old bikes. “I would go along with them on bike rides, and that’s when the itch grew.”

The A7 led to a Royal Enfield Constellation. Then came a 1947 Triumph Tiger 100, which was restored from absolute scrap condition. Then came a Matchless. “I was in love with the 1959 Triumph Tiger 100, the one that came before the Bonneville. The best of the lot. So I got that one too,” he says. At this point, the Honda craze started again. In came a 1971 Honda CB750 Four K1. Along the way, he also got himself three more BMWs, a lovely BMW R100RS, and a brace of two R69s.

The entire lot was disposed of by Mehta following an argument with his son over where to park the bikes. At the time, some of his bikes were even parked in his office.  But how long can an enthusiast stay away from motorcycles? Soon enough, the itch started again. An itch that Mehta scratches with his trio of special Hondas for now.