Harris Performance earned their reputation by taking ill-handling Japanese motorcycles, removing the engines, and putting them inside their hand-made chassis. That was a simple and effective recipe but by the early 1990s, even Japanese engineers had figured out horsepower wasn’t the only answer, and in 1992 Honda gave us the awesome FireBlade. Which makes the Harris FireBlade Magnum 5 a bit of a puzzle.
Even I struggle to explain why Harris would want to take the FireBlade engine from its alloy beam spar frame, and then stick it in a frame made of steel tube?
Looks wise, you could argue that the Magnum 5 was more stylish than the now-iconic original Blade, and there’s always a desire to be unusual and different. But then again, this 1996 Harris Magnum 5 down at Motorcycles Unlimited was built in 1996. With hindsight, that’s just two years before Yamaha took things on again with the R1, and three years before the FireBlade Evo TT100 was built by Russell Savory’s RS Performance to create the ultimate special Blade.
At the time, the plan was apparently to capitalise on the number of early Blades being lobbed into hedges by unsuspecting owners used to less-twitchy handling. So the Magnum 5 kit could be obtained for around 拢4500 including the fairing and stainless steel exhaust system, with the choice of adding forks, wheels, discs etc depending on what you had left from the donor bike.
And the set-up aimed at road riders. The forks are raked at 25 degrees compared to the stock CBR’s default 24, the wheelbase is 45mm longer, the seat is 20mm lower, and the result is a more relaxed riding position, more stability, and slightly more effort to muscle around corners.
20 years later and the Harris Magnum 5 hasn’t become as iconic as the earlier Harris creations or the stock original Blade, but given the advancing age of anyone around for the early 90’s, the appeal of a more road-focused special with Honda reliability makes it an interesting purchase. And one of the most unusual things about his bike is that it’s survived unmolested since it was originally built, which is something not many early Honda FireBlades can still boast.
My mate Phil Baldwin had a Z900 engined Harris.At Towcester main square on a Saturday night before the British GP at Silverstone, the police were being pelted with flour bombs & generally abused.Phil pulls away & his chain comes off, locking the rear wheel.The Old Bill think this is a piss-take & promptly drag him & his Harris away in the back of a Black Mariah.And he was a marshal that year lol 馃檪 Hey, he may even still own it, another phone call to be made!