Careful What You Wish For

My Dream of a Barn Find Results in a Honda Dream

By Geoff Drake

Originally published in BMW Owners News.

For many years I had a six-mile commute to work on a local, mostly two-lane road. At the outset, this route had exactly zero traffic lights. Today, some 35 years later, there are 15 lights, and traffic moves with distinctly glacial speed, the roar of automobiles urged along by squealing tires and angry epithets from time-pressed commuters who would rather be…well, I’m not sure they know where they would rather be. But wherever it is, they need to get there in a hurry.

During all those years I noticed a small farm—the last of its kind—being slowly consumed by civilization, the final holdout in a sadly burgeoning town that was once pretty and quaint. And I wondered: how could that little farm, with its aging livestock and tiny farmstand, possibly withstand the onslaught? The answer: it couldn’t. Eventually, the farm went on the block and the two brothers who owned it set about disposing of its myriad rusty implements, tractors, fruit crates, and hand tools. It all had to go in advance of the inevitable graders and excavators. 

This is where my friend Preston came in. In his retirement, Preston volunteers at the local agricultural museum, and he was summoned to save whatever artifacts might be of interest for display. And it was there, as he rummaged through the old harvesters and machine tools, that he noticed a fully intact, if rusty, motorcycle, covered in hay and dung, laying dejectedly on its side, next to a broken window.

I’ve known Preston a long time, and he is aware of my three most prominent characteristics: poor judgment, ineptitude with money, and a weakness for old motorcycles. 

“I know a guy who might want this!” he told the owners, happily. 

Preston proposes having us all meet the next day. But I can’t wait. Though the bike has been sitting there unmoved for five decades, I needed to see it immediately. 

“I’ll see you in 15 minutes,” I say, swinging a leg over my 1975 Honda CB400F and speeding off like a teenager on his first date.

And there it was:  a ‘65 Honda CA77 Dream, complete with rotted white wall tires, valanced fenders, square mirror, and swoopy handlebar. Every piece seemed to be there but one: the bottom half of the fully enclosed chainguard. 

Viewed from the front, the Dream’s iconic, square headlight stared out of the gloom, looking more than a little like E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial. But instead of “Phone Home,” it said, “Take Me Home.” 

And so I did. God help me.

Living the Dream in the 1960s

What’s a Honda Dream, you might ask? (I did.)  The 305-cc CA77 Dream is a stylistic icon that launched other Honda models like the CB72 Hawk and CB77 Super Hawk (a.k.a. the Robert Pirsig bike, from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance). The Dream was a mainstay of Honda’s U.S. motorcycle business from ‘60 to ‘69, and was available in several variants, including a smaller, 250-cc version called the CA72. By ‘64, more than 100,000 Dreams were being produced globally per month.

You can’t say the little twin was powerful. It sported just a single, 22–mm carburetor—an opening that’s about one half that of the average shot glass. You couldn’t get tipsy on that much alcohol, and you can’t go fast on this motorcycle. It made just 20 hp.

Nor was it particularly svelte, at 356 pounds. But what it was, was popular. The air-cooled, electric-start bike came with a fully enclosed chain, tool kit, and 12-volt electrics. It fired up instantly on the button and ran, well, like a Honda. At least before the mighty Honda CB750 Four rendered all other road going motorcycles irrelevant. The last Dreams were produced in ‘69, the same year the mighty 750 Four was introduced and motorcycling was changed forever. 

Today, the Dream is noted for its deeply valanced fenders, elegantly flipped out at their southernmost edges, like mullets on the back of a teenager’s head. Oceans of sculpted sheet metal speak of another, somewhat baroque age, when evenings were spent watching Ozzie and Harriet, and the greatest concern was the sudden appearance of dandelions on the lawn.

But the stylistic highlight is surely the six-inch, square headlight, topped by an elegant and diminutive speedometer that looks like your mother’s Cartier watch and displays an optimistic 100 mph. The meager lamp boldly faces the future, introducing a style that wouldn’t make a big comeback until your father’s Pontiac in ‘75.

The Man with the Corn Cob Pipe

Upon arriving at the soon-to-be-flattened farm, I’m met by the bike’s owner, Al, looking a bit like Gandalf, sporting a glorious gray beard to mid-chest, and smoking a corncob pipe (no lie!). Everything about the place, including Al, seems to indicate that I’ve passed through some kind of time portal, where the most prominent modes of transportation are Honda Dreams and John Deere tractors with enormous, external flywheels. 

It runs out that Al and his brother, Steve, grew up on the place. These are men of another age, when you could scratch out a happy life on a small tract of land, and putter about on Honda Dream as if your life was a dream. 

Al tells me that he’s the second owner of the bike; it was bought new in ’65, and he acquired it the next year. He rode his Dream through ’73, and has the registrations to prove it, rolled up in a little plastic tube affixed to the license plate, which apparently is how you carried your most important documents in those days. He logged 6,138 miles on the bike before putting it up in the barn. At some point, in the ensuing years, it fell over on its side, and was gradually covered by an amalgam of hay, feces, and the detritus of the decades. A highly fecund family of mice soon moved into the airbox with their many children, where life was gloriously sheltered for 52 years. 

And that’s exactly how I found the bike, in 2025.

Al initially regards me with suspicion, like an elder brother cross-examining his sister’s boyfriend on a first date. I labor to convince him of my good intentions: I’m a lifelong rider whose restored many bikes, and currently own five with a combined age of 239 years. I want to ensure that this treasure does not go to the crusher. I promise that I won’t flip it for profit, or part it out. 

Eventually he seems convinced that I’m not going to use the bike for ballast or shooting practice. After a somewhat taciturn greeting, I notice that the younger brother, who has been standing off to one side, has actually started to smile. I consider this a good sign.

Having passed the interview, and not wanting to allow for a change of heart, I ride home to get my trailer. I’ve never hooked up my rig faster, and was back at the farm in 25 minutes, panting heavily from the effort. The only way to access the bike was to do a little off-roading, going bumpety-bump through the soon-to-be-excavated field, everything bouncing up and down and making the kind of racket only an empty steel trailer can. 

We roll the bike up the ramp, laboring against its flattened tires. With the bike secured, I wave as I bump across the field. At the last moment, I see the two brothers, Al and Steve,  looking after me, smiling, though perhaps a bit wistful about this rite of passage. 

And thus, their Dream became my dream. Oh foolish man!

What Have I Done?

Once home, in the clear light of day, I begin to realize the scale of my transgression. First, the bike is a clear and flagrant violation of the zero-sum agreement I made with Meredith a few years ago. You know, the one where every new motorcycle must be accompanied by the departure of another. The truth is, I have no idea where this bike will go. There isn’t an inch of room, anywhere. I meekly suggest it might occupy a prominent place in the living room, as a kind of art object. The suggestion, to no-one’s surprise, does not even merit a derisive glance. If Meredith trips over one more motorcycle, it’s curtains for me. 

Upon closer inspection of the bike, my initial elation gives way to the harsh reality of what happens to metal when abandoned in a damp barn for 52 years. I actually had no idea that chrome could look this bad; it’s peeling off the rims and handlebars in sheets, falling on the ground like metallic potato chips. I gently try turning an assortment of nuts and bolts, and not a single one budges. Nor do the pistons, which are stubbornly frozen in their bores. The heel-toe shifter spins on its shaft and elicits no response from the gearbox. 

On the bright side, it does have a coveted black California license plate, cracked in two places, but fixable. I put a multimeter on the ancient battery, and it generates two volts, which I choose to interpret as a sign of hope, like a rescue flare sent up from a distant island. 

Don’t worry. Help is on the way. Though it might take a while. 

Lord of the Mouse House

A week later, while attending a vintage motorcycle swap meet, I meet Ron, the owner of a beautiful Honda Dream like mine—that actually runs. He fires the bike up for me, on the button no less, and it gurgles to life, making lovely small noises, like an engine engaged in the act of whispering. The idling engine also elicits a broad smile from its owner, though he had surely heard that music a thousand times before. In fact, he smiles every time he talked about the bike, which I consider a good sign. Maybe in the future I’ll go around smiling endlessly, which is something I’m pretty sure I don’t do currently.

If there had been any thought of abandoning this project, it’s gone now. The gentle gurgling of that 60-year-old Dream now lives in my dreams, and won’t let me rest.

But in the meantime, that future involves lots of rust, frozen bolts…and airbox mice.