600 RR v Fireblade

[Skeptisk]

Just watching a video with a comparison of the “new” 600 RR vs Fireblade. What stuck out the most is the difference in price. £10,500 vs £23,500.

Yes Fireblade does have a lot more power and fancier suspension, but is in worth not far off two and half times the 600?

Back in the 90s my first bike was a ZX-6R. I seem to recall prices of 600s was around £6k whilst the litre bikes were around £10k. According to the inflation calculator £6000 in 1997 is more than £10,500 today. No such good comparison for the Fireblade.

Is the 600 really good value or the Fireblade too much?

[Skeptisk]

graeme4130 said:

If you look at the fireblade of yesteryear vs nowadays, they’ll almost completely different bikes - think way more complex electronics, electronic suspension etc
Whereas the CBR 600 beyond the digital dash is basically the same bike as 10 years ago

Edited by graeme4130 on Tuesday 19th March 18:33

Doesn’t the latest RR have TC, rider modes, lean sensitive ABS? Agreed that it has passive suspension. But still it has been updated and on par with base level litre bikes.

[Skeptisk]

Point I was trying to highlight is that the price of the 600 seems to have increased with inflation but the Fireblade is proportionately more expensive. I just checked and the original Fireblade cost £7400 in 1992, which equates to £15,500 in today’s money. So it it 50% more expensive.

Perhaps it reflects that fewer are bought and people buying them are less cost conscious.

[Skeptisk]

Condi said:

srob said:

It will be partially economy of scale but mainly the sheer cost of developing a bike now compared to then. A 1992 Fireblade wasn't even fuel injected, I don't think?

929 was the first FI model, either 2000 or 2001 the first registered models.

A newer Fireblade has a lot more tech and a lot more toys than the older ones did - electronically adjustable Ohlins suspension, Akropvoic titanium exhaust and Brembo brakes are standard, not to mention the ABS, TC, emissions control etc, non of which existed on the older bikes.

From memory a 2001 has Honda suspension, Nisin brakes, steel (maybe alloy) muffler, no ABS and no TC.

When you add up the cost of that and put it into your inflation calculator then a 50% increase over inflation doesn't seem unreasonable?

I don’t think that you can compare a modern Fireblade and the original and say because the newer one is more advanced it should be relatively more expensive. Of course it has more tech as bikes have advanced over the past thirty years. Even the new 600 RR is technologically much better than the first Fireblade but much cheaper.

What matters more is relative to the other bikes at the time the first Fireblade was a leap forward and at least as far ahead as the current Fireblade is over more run of the mill sportsbikes.

[Skeptisk]

Condi said:

Skeptisk said:

I don’t think that you can compare a modern Fireblade and the original and say because the newer one is more advanced it should be relatively more expensive.

You don't think? So where is the money for the Ohlins suspension, Brembo brakes, titanium exhaust, traction control, ABS, digital screen, etc supposed to come from, if not from the sale price? The suspension and brakes alone are probably a few grand over and above the Honda own suspension and Nisin brakes of the older models, and then the number of parts required for the ABS, TC etc is far greater than what was there on the original bike which didn't have those features.

There is an idea in economics about inflation in that it's very hard to measure because things are improving all the time. If you take the cheapest car you can buy today vs the cheapest car 20 years ago, the modern car has aircon, electric windows and much better safety features, all of which are not measured in a simple inflation calculator.

But that isn’t how things work in a capitalist economy (in general). Products get better over time but they also get cheaper. If you take a Ford Focus and original Ford Escort the former is so much better in every way (as a car to use and be relied upon) yet it costs pretty much the same when adjusted for inflation.

The same should apply to bikes - and does generally. The CBR 600 RR has the latest technology but costs the same once adjusted for inflation as my first ZX6R in 1997.

[Skeptisk]

Condi said:

Skeptisk said:

But that isn’t how things work in a capitalist economy (in general). Products get better over time but they also get cheaper.

They don't get cheaper, they get more expensive, which is what inflation measures. Some products get cheaper, due to economies of scale and improvements in manufacturing, but really you're talking about tech, or maybe drugs, or whatever. The raw materials don't generally get cheaper.

My point is that "inflation" which covers a basic basket of goods doesn't have any way to measure the Ohlins suspension, the Brembo brakes, the titanium exhaust, the TC, the ABS which are on the 2024 bike which were not on the 1997 bike. You're not getting the same product as you were in 1997, you're getting a much better product. Not only that, Honda are selling far fewer of them so the development and manufacturing costs are spread over a smaller number of bikes.

You can’t just look at inflation. You need to look at earnings too, as that impacts how “affordable” ie how cheap or expensive something is.

To illustrate with numbers.

If you started with the big 6 accounting firms back in 1997 you would have been paid around £18k and a CBR 600 was around £6,000 so you could have bought three with your salary (ignoring taxes). If you start today with the big 4 you get around £50k but the CBR600 is only £10.5k, so you could nearly buy 5 of them. So relatively the CBR600 has got cheaper as you don’t have to work for as long to buy one.

[Skeptisk]

Condi said:

Skeptisk said:

You can’t just look at inflation. You need to look at earnings too, as that impacts how “affordable” ie how cheap or expensive something is.

To illustrate with numbers.

If you started with the big 6 accounting firms back in 1997 you would have been paid around £18k and a CBR 600 was around £6,000 so you could have bought three with your salary (ignoring taxes). If you start today with the big 4 you get around £50k but the CBR600 is only £10.5k, so you could nearly buy 5 of them. So relatively the CBR600 has got cheaper as you don’t have to work for as long to buy one.

That's a very arbitrary measure, using a Big 6 starting salary.

If you take an average measure across everyone then in 1999 average salary was £17,800 and in 2023 it was £34,960. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1002964/average-full-time-annual-earnings-in-the-uk/)

On that basis (unless you are at a Big 6 accountancy firm!) then in 1999 you could have bought about 3 CBR600's, and today you can buy 3.5 CBR600's , so not that different.

Also, we were discussing the increase in price of a Fireblade, which comes from the OP;

Skeptisk said:

Back in the 90s my first bike was a ZX-6R. I seem to recall prices of 600s was around £6k whilst the litre bikes were around £10k. According to the inflation calculator £6000 in 1997 is more than £10,500 today. No such good comparison for the Fireblade.

The point is that while for a CBR600 it's a very similar bike to that of 20 years ago, the 'Blade is a much better product - better suspension, better brakes, TC, ABS etc, and all that has to be paid for which isn't measured in a simple inflation calculator.

I was using the big 6 as I remember what I paid when I started!

I don’t understand your point about the current CBR600RR being the same as a CBR 600 from 1997. Perhaps you never rode one in 1997! The current CBR600RR doesn’t have much more power - about 20 bhp - but in every other way is a lot better and different from the 1997 bike - better brakes, suspension, ABS, TC, rider modes, lean sensitive ABS.

I chose a CBR600RR as it was in the video (and a Honda) but if you went for a Street Triple RS that has Ohlins plus all the electronics for £11500.

I don’t think you are paying £24.5k for a Fireblade because it has better suspension. Like others have written, it is aimed at the fewer number of bikers who are willing to pay over the odds to get what they perceive to be the best.