Tadao Baba (馬場忠雄) is a retired Japanese motorcycle engineer, the original designer of the Honda Fireblade. Baba joined Honda Motorcycles from high school in 1962, aged 18 — the company itself was only 14 years old. Working in the machinery section, he made crankcases and cylinder heads for Honda's Honda CB72 and Honda CB77.

May 10, 2024 · Tadao Baba, the man who built the FireBlade, talks openly about retirement, smoking and crashing the odd Honda now and then... Baba-san, how old are you these days? Well the mind is 28 but my body, actually it is 64. I am now officially retired, and have been for …

Back in the late 1980s sports bikes had become rather large and unwieldy and they were designed and built more for straight-line speed rather than any nimbleness in the corners. Then things changed, thanks to a former racer and Honda engineer called Tadao Baba.

Jul 3, 2019 · A history and buying guide guide to buying the Honda FireBlade CBR900RR, CBR929RR and CBR954RR, the original FireBlade series made by Tadao Baba.

Jul 24, 2017 · Designed by Tadao Baba, the first Fireblade broke new ground in terms of power and weight, decimating the 750cc sportsbike opposition with its agile handling and over-capacity motor.

Jul 29, 2024 · Ten visionary designers have not only pushed these machines to set speed records but have also transformed the landscape of two-wheeled performance with their groundbreaking designs. Tadao Baba is credited with the creation of the Honda CBR1100XX Super Blackbird.

Nov 23, 2018 · So let’s look at the original versions of this modern classic and dig out some interesting facts about the bike – along with words about the machine’s creator – Tadao Baba. The first RR-N/P version of the FireBlade was released in 1992 and it set the world of motorcycling on fire (see what we did there?) but it was a fair few years in ...

Nov 19, 2014 · Even the project leader of the Yamaha R1, Kunihiko Miwa, looked to this man for inspiration. His name is Tadao Baba, executive chief engineer of Honda’s Research and Development plant in...

Dec 1, 2007 · Thought this picture might interest any Fireblade owners who haven't seen it before - Tadao Baba's signature embossed on the inside of the front fairing. This is from a 1999 918cc model but I'd hazard a guess that it was on all Baba-san's 'blades.

The man, the legend, Tadao Baba, creator of the game-changing 1992 FireBlade, is back; Starring in a video alongside three Large Project Leaders who followed where he led, looking back at 30 years of the same unchanging Fireblade mentality