Purple Rain-Prince and CB400A

"Purple Rain" was a musical movie that became some sort of a cult movie, which was intended to showcase Prince's enormous talent and bit of doucheness.

The movie idea was apparently developed by Prince during his "Triple Threat" tour. Initially the script was to be darker and more coherent.

Although the film was considered "outrageous" at that time by Warner Bros., it was finally accepted for distribution thanks to music industry PR man Howard Bloom and eventually won a few awards including Oscar, Golden Gloves for best original song, not for acting or best direction needless to say. He was playing himself, though....

I liked the album of his with the same title and I remember listening to it when I was a kid. Also saw the movie poster of "Purple Rain" every where during that time, which featured Prince on his motorcycle with a purple Vetter windjammer looking cowling on it and moody back lit steam and a mysterious female figure on the back.

The bike was CB400A. Yes, it was a Hondamatic. I guess Prince could not really ride a motorcycle.

Honda developed the bike after the failure of CB750A. The 750A was a good bike and now a collectors item but back then it was considered too big and expensive by many potential buyers. So Honda decided to make them smaller in 1978. It was a 395cc 4-stroke OHC parallel twin with two CV carburetors. The transmission worked on the same principal as that of the 750: A hydraulic converter allowed clutch-less selection of a low speed -good for around 55 mph and giving good pickup, or a less responsive high speed. Naturally, a parking brake was provided, and it could not start the engine with a gear engaged or the stand lowered for the safety. The lever on the left was not a clutch lever; it was the parking brake. I might need some getting used to... The CB400A was manufactured from '78 to '81


By the way, in the movie, the tires are automatic as well; the motorcycle's tire changes from a street tire to an off-road tire when Prince is near the river.