History of #9616

The motorcycle was purchased new by the original owner, Mr. James Dixon from Wixom, Michigan in 1984. Mr. Dixon then lovingly cared for the bike for the next 20 years until he unfortunately passed away. At this point the motorcycle had only covered 2,500 miles, the result of a relatively short riding season in Michigan and Mr. Dixon only riding the motorcycle on fine, sunny days.

After the death of Mr. Dixon, his son, Wally Dixon took over care of the motorcycle, and although Wally never rode the bike, he continued his father’s tradition of storing the bike in a clean, dry and safe place until 2007 when it was sold to a Mr. Axelrad who also lived in Wixom, Michigan.

An interesting twist to this story is that Mr. Wally Dixon used to tend to the garden of Mr. Axelrad, so when he was looking for a buyer it seemed only fitting to sell the bike to someone his knew and trusted

Mr. Axelrad also took great care of the motorcycle, generally only riding it on fine days and to the occasional local bike rally (where it won the Mad Max class in 2015).

In 2021, Mr Axelrad decided to give up riding and sell the V65 Sabre to a new owner in Brisbane, Australia.

Although the motorcycle was originally purchased new from the Honda dealership without a fairing, Mr. James Dixon had fitted a Hondaline fairing during his early years of ownership.

Fortunately, Mr. Dixon kept the original rectangular shaped headlight, and had passed it onto Mr Axelrad which would turn out to be useful when the bike was sold to its next owner.

An interesting addendum to the history of this V65 Sabre is the new owner wanted to return the bike back to its original (un-faired) condition prior to it being shipped to Australia. A non-trivial task to organise from several thousand miles away. However, several kind souls from the extensive V4 community in the USA came to the rescue and the motorcycle made a short trip from Wixon, MI down to Cincinnati, OH. From this location, the fairing was carefully removed, and the rectangular headlight, along with a multitude of other standard Honda components, were refitted. A gentleman by the name of “Stretch” even rode up to Cincinnati from Lexington to deliver the last few Honda components required to complete the job.

The final stage of the journey to Australia involved covered transport to Compton, CA and then onward shipment to Antwerp and then finally onto Brisbane, Australia.

Photos on this page show the motorcycle in 2021 with the Hondaline fairing still fitted, the Mad Max trophy and the bike in transit to Australia. 

Once the bike arrived into Australia, it was clear to the new owner that it was in highly original condition, and only items that needed attention were:

Original factory mirrors needed to be sourced

The USA emission decals needed to be replaced

Forks seals and springs needed replacing

The carbs needed cleaning/rebuilding as they has sat with fuel in them for the past 6 months

OEM Mirrors and a replacement emission decal were subsequently sourced.

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The front forks were rebuilt with new seals and progressive springs.

For the carbs, a replacement set from a matching 1984 V65 Sabre with 14,000 miles were located in Appleton, Wisconsin which were shipped to MagnAndy who runs "The Carb Spa" - thecarbspa.com for a full clean and rebuild. Purchasing a new set of carbs may sound extreme, but the logic used was that a spare set of of carbs (and internals) is always useful to have, and MagnAndy is widely known, and very well respected within the global V4 community, and there is probably nobody better in the world than him to rebuild and set-up the carbs correctly.