In a world grown accustomed to an excess of decadence on all fronts, it is hard to imagine the mixture of awe and disbelief that greeted the Honda Gold Wing on its arrival in 1974. 'Motorcycle or sci-fi fantasy?' was Bike magazine's reaction. 'Quite simply the most advanced motorcycle ever made,' was Honda's preferred description, and given the mind-boggling specification: 1,000cc flat-four engine, water cooling, belt-driven overhead camshafts, shaft drive, triple disc brakes, etc, it was certainly complex if not, strictly speaking, that advanced. One of the fastest production motorcycles of its day, the Gold Wing was described in Honda's Stateside ads as 'the epitome of what touring is all about', and proved eminently capable of taking sales from both BMW and Harley-Davidson. As owners began to fit more and more accessories - including trailers the size of small caravans - engine capacity was increased first to 1,100cc and then to 1,200cc to cope with the increasing demands for more power. Over the years the 'Wing has continued to grow in engine capacity, overall size and complexity, which only serves to underline the increasingly collectible original's purity of form.

BBC Television 'Top Gear' presenter and avid motorcycle collector, Richard Hammond purchased this GL1000 Gold Wing from his colleague James May in July 2013. Correspondence on file states that the machine spent much of its early life in storage, while the current odometer reading is only circa 13,000 miles. Numerous invoices on file testify to the fact that it has benefited from the attentions of some of the best in the business. Presented in superb original condition and said to be a pleasure to use, the machine is offered with the aforementioned invoices, a quantity of MoT certificates (most recent expired July 2014), old/current V5C registration documents, workshop manual and an owner's manual.