Doug Mitchel

Honda Motorcycles 1959-1985: Enthusiasts Guide is an amazing, full-color exploration of these classic, originally inexpensive and tiny bikes that invaded the US in the early 60's. I'll admit that I'm more of a classic car nut, but one of my earliest loves was the motorcycle. As a kid of the 60's and 70's, I studied the design and function of motorbikes (and cars of course) and would make drawings of them from real life and books. I expanded this into what is now known as the American chopper and honestly, I didn't spend too much time on the early offerings from Japan. I certainly missed out on something special, as evinced by the contents of this book.

This enthusiast guide provides many descriptions of the variations between different Honda models from a collector's viewpoint. The photos are detailed and the information if engrossing. If you're thinking of buying a classic Honda bike, or have already done so and wish to do an accurate restoration, this book is a must-have. For Honda historians, this book has a wealth and breadth of information rarely found in similar homage books. I especially liked the pros and cons of each model as detailed, along with why things were changed in future iterations - yes I know it's a bit much, but we who are OCD about collecting and restoring understand the mentality of the author, Doug Mitchel, and the though process used putting the Enthusiasts Guide together.

I've looked at some similar books and haven't found anything close to what you get in this package: detailed descriptions; color photos with close-ups; lists of variations; history of manufacture; and resources for parts. You could do much worse - kudos to the author!… (meer)

Let me start by saying I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest review. That being said, I’m glad it was free, because the list price on the back of the book states $27.95. I would’ve been super-pissed if I spent that kind of money on this book. It’s not that it’s such a bad book. I mean, some of the pictures were kind of cool, but the book was poorly written and riddled with typos and misspellings, especially since this was a revised edition. I also don’t see how they got the title, “Advanced Tattoo Art,” because it seemed pretty basic to me, mostly pretty standard stuff you can find on the walls of any tattoo shop. There were a couple of decent artists, but that was it. The best part about the book was the history of tattooing and some of the artists’ back-stories. Like some of the other reviewers said, you’d be better off saving your money and buying some magazines or a different book. I wanted to like the book a lot more than I actually did.… (meer)