is a retired

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike, or trike (if three-wheeled)) is a two or three-wheeled motor vehicle steered by a handlebar. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: long-distance travel, commuting, cruising ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

, the original designer of the

Honda Fireblade The Honda Fireblade is a family of sport motorcycles manufactured by Honda since 1992. The first model was designed by Tadao Baba. * CBR900RR, 1992–1995 ** CBR919RR, 1996–1999 ** CBR929RR, 2000–2001 ** CBR954RR, 2002–2003 * CBR1000RR T ...

Career

Baba joined

Honda Motorcycles is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a producti ...

from

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

in 1962, aged 18 — the company itself was only 14 years old. Working in the machinery section, he made

crankcase In a piston engine, the crankcase is the housing that surrounds the crankshaft. In most modern engines, the crankcase is integrated into the engine block. Two-stroke engines typically use a crankcase-compression design, resulting in the fuel/a ...

s and

cylinder head In an internal combustion engine, the cylinder head (often abbreviated to simply "head") sits above the cylinders and forms the roof of the combustion chamber. In sidevalve engines, the head is a simple sheet of metal; whereas in more modern ov ...

s for Honda’s

Honda CB72 The Honda CB77, or Super Hawk, is a straight-twin motorcycle produced from 1961 until 1967. It is remembered today as Honda's first sport bike. It is a landmark model in Honda's advances in Western motorcycle markets of the 1960s, noted for its ...

and

Honda CB77 The Honda CB77, or Super Hawk, is a straight-twin motorcycle produced from 1961 until 1967. It is remembered today as Honda's first sport bike. It is a landmark model in Honda's advances in Western motorcycle markets of the 1960s, noted for its ...

. At age 20, Baba moved to Honda's R&D department, which is where he spent the rest of his career until retiring in 2004. He continued as a consultant until 2009.

Total Control

In the late 1980s, sports motorcycles were very fast, with magazines rating bikes on their top speed. To house a 1000cc engine the bikes became heavy, while to ensure the stability of the bikes at high speed, the chassis became longer. The result was a series of fast bikes, which didn't handle in corners. Baba states this as the reason which inspired him to design the FireBlade: Baba began developing a new concept in sports motorcycles under the title "Total Control," based on the fundamentals of fun to ride, easy to control. The first bike developed under Total Control was the

Honda CBR750RR is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a product ...

around a 750cc engine, but Honda already had the

Honda VFR The Honda VF and VFR series is a range of motorcycles first introduced in 1982 by Honda featuring V4 engines (hence the "VF" prefix). History In 1969 Honda revealed the CB750 superbike, establishing the template for the Universal Japanese Motor ...

in that segment; the idea to develop the bike in the 1000cc market was also dismissed, with the existing

Honda CBR1000F The Honda CBR1000F Hurricane is a sport touring motorcycle, part of the CBR series manufactured by Honda from 1987 to 1996 in the United States and from 1987 to 1999 in the rest of the world. It is powered by a liquid-cooled, DOHC, , 16-valve inl ...

. Instead Baba proposed to develop Total Control around the chassis dimensions of a 750, using the same base motor and its bore, but with an increase in stroke to create an 893cc engine, keeping it closer and hence performance-competitive with the existing 1000cc bikes. After winning over the Honda Marketing team who were sceptical about creating a new class of motorcycle, the new 900cc class was created with one bike from all manufacturers globally in the class. This created both a marketing risk, but also a technological advantage should the class take off. The result of the original FireBlade in 1992 on the market, which was lighter than the nearest competitor, was that it sold so many units by capturing sales from both the tourer and existing sports bike ranges. This resulted the competition not catching up until

Yamaha Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below). ** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...

created the lighter 1000cc R1 in 1998, which created the modern 1000cc Supersports category.

Personal life

Married, Baba has a reputation amongst Honda test riders and media journalists as a smoker who often crashes his bikes, although he claims to have only ever crashed four FireBlades.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baba, Tadao Living people Honda motorcycle designers Japanese automotive engineers Japanese motorcycle designers 1944 births