Bill ("Mr. Honda") Silver was born in San Diego, California, and attended Sweetwater High School, where he enrolled in double sessions of Auto Shop. Hewas invited to be a representative of the school at the Chrysler Troubleshooting contest in 1966. His first motorcycle was a 1967 domestic version of the CL90 Scrambler. On one three-day adventure, he rode the bike 1,500 miles from sea level to over 6,000-foot elevations in late April, where the temperatures dropped to twenty degrees at night. The little 90 Scrambler perked along California's highways at 50-60 mph for hours at a time, delivering 100 mpg consistently. This outstanding performance was the turning point for his desire to ride Hondas as his exclusive make for years to come.
Learning by owning, he bought and sold over 300 vehicles (mostly Honda motorcycles) in a forty year period, gleaning design information, repair tips and bike history data, while continuing to increase his respect for Honda products, large and small. His smallest acquisitions were the P50 Little Hondas, as well as a rare domestic 1952 F Cub. The largest, to date, have been several CBX sixes. Among the rare acquisitions over the past 48 years have been a 1953 Benly J, a 1960 CB92 #24, a 1957 JC57 Benly, a 1959 CE71, a 1962 CA77 Dream, a CYP77 Police bike and a 1966 CP450 Police bike.
Bill's passion for Honda motorcycles led him to begin documenting the details of the 1961-67 Honda CB77 Super Hawks in 1992, followed by restoration guides for the 250-305cc Scramblers, and the CA72-77 Dreams, a few years later. In support of these models, he wrote a step-by-step engine repair manual, which included many of the details not covered in the factory shop manuals. The 250-305cc Honda Twin Restoration Guide CDs contains over 1,000 pages of model-specific data for the benefit of enthusiasts of the Classic Twins of the 1960-67 eras. These CDs are available through his website (www.vintagehonda.com).
Bill was the newsletter editor of the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club (VJMC) for a two-year period in the early '90s, writing numerous Honda-related stories in his own monthly column called the "Techknuckle Page." In 1999, he was contracted to write The Illustrated Buyer's Guide of Classic Hondas, which sold out of its 5,000 copy print run within two years. Motorbooks declined to reprint the book and the rights of the publication reverted back to the author in 2002. This revised version has been published in order to keep the book available to an ever-increasing Honda fan base, which has chosen to resurrect vintage Hondas, of all sizes, through the years.