It has been a long time coming with this announcement, but Honda has finally officially announced that work has begun on what is presumed to be a V4 sport bike. In the same vein as the Honda RC30 that was introduced back in 1987, Honda has apparently seen the light, and according to the company’s own words, the company has started “with a goal to create a new history.”

Announcing the new model in his end-of-the-fiscal year speech, Honda CEO Takanobu Ito was terse with his words in describing the new Honda sport bike, but referencing the RC30 project, along with heavy rumors that we have been hearing about a V4 street bike project in the works that was being based of Honda’s MotoGP program — this almost assures that the bike referenced is a V4 superbike based loosely on the RC213V race bike.

With the Honda CBR1000RR looking very long in the tooth, it is not clear if Honda’s V4 project is a replacement for the current-model CBR, or if it is a separate model that will be positioned to be more costly and exclusive than the inline-four CBR (we would expect the latter).

The news comes as an interesting pairing with the fact that Honda plans on offering a production-prototype for MotoGP competition. That model is expected to be a tuned-down version of the Honda RC213V race bike, and the model announced today is allegedly an even more tuned-down version of that machine.

One thing is for sure, if Honda can truly channel the mojo the company produced with the Honda RC30, the company could finally tap into the hearts and minds of sport bike enthusiasts with something more than bulletproof manufacturing.

It wouldn’t surprise us to see a concept of the V4 sport bike unveiled at INTERMOT or EICMA later this year. Expect to see the machine in 2013 or 2014.

Source: Honda; Photo: © 2012 Scott Jones / Scott Jones Photography – All Rights Reserved