The debate of Yamaha 100 versus Honda 70 in Pakistan is probably as old as the date of Aug 14, 1947.
While I belong to the Yamaha club, I have to admit that Honda crowd is steadily increasing in number. Therefore today I will offer an olive branch to all the Honda 70 community out there. You should also appreciate that it has taken me 20 years since I rode my first Yamaha to come around and write following lines in praise of a Honda.
Honda 70’s Amphibian Qualities
This is a true story guys. The year was 1992. Karachi got hit by one of its famous monsoon rains where mother nature dumped the whole year’s rain quota within few hours – and got done with it. After few hours of rain, nothing moved in the city because the whole city had became a large pool of stagnant water and stranded humanity.
I was in the University that day. As I left for home, my Yamaha’s engine died just after sailing for 2 feet. I was still inside the NED’s Main Gate. After that I had to drag the motorcycle in knee deep water for 9 kilometers to reach my home. andaaza karo dosto! (imagine that friends!). While I was going through all this hardship and after 30 minutes had barely reached Safari Park, I heard a distinct ‘pat pat pattar…pattar pattar gheN gheN’ sound coming from the North. At first I thought Civil Defense guys from Malir Cantt had brought out motor-boats to rescue stranded Pakistanis like me. I quickly turned my neck in anticipation and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw my friend Raees-ul-Haq riding his Honda 70 in deep waters. He had covered his engine in grease which insulated the spark plug and his Honda 70 sailed through Monsoon rains like a hot knife cuts through frozen butter. Raees also had a cute little smile on his face as he passed by me.
mujhe sab hai yaad zara zara, tumhe yaad ho ke na yaad ho
Raees! if you read these lines then please write your reply in the comments section below – kuch nahi kaha jaaye ga – aur meri tabiat bilkul theek hai
Amphibian Honda and Nadeem in movie aina
Readers, please also look at this Pakistani movie ‘aina’ song to see the amphibian qualities of both Honda and Nadeem.
Now that you’ve watched above video, I have doubts whether the motorcycle shown in the song is Honda or Kawasaki. Regardless, you got the message i.e. Honda runs well on both land and sea.
A Community Gets Built Around Honda 70
Honda 70 is a community vehicle in Pakistan. In many mohallas (neighborhoods) I’ve seen an old Honda 70 shared by many house holds. Our neighbors also had a Honda 70 from the times of ‘baawa Adam’ (Adam). It used to be permanently parked in the street for anyboady’s and everybody’s use. It was a‘dhakka’ start so who ever needed to run any errand used to take this Honda 70. An amicable toss of coin was made in case two people wanted to use it at the same time. For example, Heads meant Javed ke abba (Javed’s father) will use it and Tails meant Chunoo miaNwill take it for a wheelie.
Over the years, this Honda 70 grew old with its shared owners. As the owners started missing their teeth, the Honda 70 also started missing its parts.
In the year 1985, Annoo bhai lost his front tooth and Honda 70 lost its front light bulb.
In 1987, Salloo Uncle became ganja (bald) and Honda 70 lost its seat cover.
The arrival of 1988 saw departure of its chain cover. By the year 1990 this Honda 70 had reduced to Honda 35 but kamal hai bhuee (non-Urdu readers, kamal is not the brother of Jamal – it means ‘bravo’ here) this motorcyle kept running until one day it finally broke apart into two pieces.
It was then sold as scrap to a ‘teen dabbay wala’ (recycling guy) and money earned was shared to buy a cricket bat for the street team.
Honda 70s = 70 km/litre
Honda 70 is also famous in Pakistan to have broken all records of traveling the longest distance per liter of petrol. I’ve known people who claim to have run Honda 70 more than 90 km in one litre of petrol. Following text will teach you how to do it.
The Tilt and Invert of Honda 70
See all you have to do is to first tilt and then invert your Honda 70 and you will get 90 km per litre out of it. So here is what you do.
Fill one litre of petrol in your Honda 70. When the petrol pump operator teases you by saying sirf ek litre? (just one litre?), you shake your hair backwards with an adaa (style) and reply ek bhi buhat hai (one is more than enough). Then you kick start your Honda and drive on. Don’t wait to hear Petrol Pump operator saying to the camera ‘mein te Honda hi le saaN’ (I will only buy Honda)
Now drive your Honda for 70 km. At exact 70th km, the motorcycle will stop because the petrol gets finished here. Now you get off its Royal seat and tilt the motorcycle to 30 degrees from horizontal and voila! you are good to get 10 more kilometers out of your empty petrol tank. So now drive on until at exact 80th km the motorcycle will stop again.
Do you think this is the end of it? naa mere bhai naa – a Tariq Aziz dialog which in English means ‘No, No and No.’
abhi to aatish jawaaN hai. Now get another person to help you lift the motorcycle and two of you together invert the motorcycle at 270 degrees from horizontal. Imagine this for a second. It means the wheels will be facing towards the sun or moon (depending on time) and seat will be facing towards the ground. This action will bring the equal and opposite reaction of getting the last few remaining droplets of petrol to the engine and there you go again. Your Honda 70 will run for 10 more kilometers. Now you can drive on till exact 90th kilometer. Then your Honda will come to a final STOP.
So do you have anymore interesting Honda 70 anecdotes to share with us? Feel free to use comments section to let us know.
ATPs other Two-Wheeler Posts
1. Of Mad Dogs and Yamaha 50s
2. Journeys to Remember: Motorcycle Safari to Goth Alla-Bino
3. When “Bicycle Dogs Fail†in Pakistan
4. The Loads We Carry on Bicycles!
5. Sohrab Cycle and Manufacturing in Pakistan
Hosting Guru. You are right – it was the same rain. So it must be 1992 and not 1993 as I recalled. I’ll do the correction.
For some reason Raees’ face is stuck in my memory as he passed by me on his ever-sailing Honda 70 but I couldn’t remember you on back seat. I am sure you were there. Just my memory playing tricks on me. After all its now been 18 years.
What a wonderful post and wonderful memories… I have owned two of these… both when I was a student at UET Lahore… the first one was black, the second red…. All these stories resonate with me…. especially of tilting the bike when it was out of gas… would always give you another 10 KM or more!
Owais ,
I also remember one of those monsoon rains, probably the heaviest during our NED days was in 1992 and I rode pillion on Rais’s Honda . Ironically, both of us put our books in Yahya’s car so that they wont get wet. But Yahya and his car did not make it to home, but we did.
That was one long afternoon. There were many places we get off the bike and carried it over. On a number of places the water was over the foot path level so it was even coming from the ‘other side’ . On Gulshan Bridge , we discovered that part of way where pedestrain could walk gave way so you had to be carefull not to fall and dip in Lyari
I think you are talking about the same aftrenoon here.
i learnt to ride a motorcycle in pakistan, a yamaha 125 if i remember correctly. but that doesn’t mean i am biased against the honda, i believe the honda is far superior machine. a friend from england who was residing in pakistan had one of those bikes brits love, not sure of the make, but it was orange, with two huge side panels that looked like rocket launchers and wide handlebars. it made a lot of noise but didn’t move very fast. apparantly the walayti’s loved those beasts, but they are constantly breaking down. shame not many people ride vespas in pak.
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