2025 Honda Gold Wing 50th Anniversary Edition Review – First Ride

Celebrating 50 years of luxo-touring

It was the second and last lap around Barber Motorsports Park aboard the Candy Blue Green 1975 GL1000 Gold Wing graciously on loan from Dennis Doyle, the brother of Honda’s Northeast Press Fleet Specialist, Rob Doyle. Rob discovered the pristine Gold Wing on Facebook Marketplace while searching for a parts bike to restore Dennis’s other GL. The first and only owner of the Facebook GL placed the ad with only 31,000 original miles on the clock. Some minor maintenance work was all it took to get the vintage Wing running smoothly. The purchase and tune-up took place briefly before lending the rare barn find to a group of moto-journalists to lap a racetrack. Talk about your benevolent leaps of faith.

Keeping all this in mind, I roll the throttle to the stop exiting Barber’s final turn, firing the antique Honda down the front straight, asking all I can of the 999cc Flat-Four’s 80 horsepower and 61 pound-feet. Not so surprisingly, the GL responds with a torquey rush forward pulling up to its 8,500 rpm redline. Grabbing a couple more gears, I hold it open until the first braking marker and glance at the green-faced speedo to see an indicated 90 mph. Considering I reached 120 mph aboard the 2025 GL1800 on the second of its two-lap session, I’m impressed at the aged Honda’s acceleration and wonder how much more speed I could coax out of the quinquagenarian if given another 20 laps.

As the braking markers flash by, I pray the dual, single-piston calipers will slow the 647-pound tourer quickly enough to make Barber’s downhill turn one before running out of cornering clearance. Considering the sentimental value of the bike, even scraping a footpeg seems sacrilegious, let alone an off-track gravel romp. Unlike some of Barber’s tighter corners, turn one is more of a bend and doesn’t demand a lot of lean angle at this speed. I finish the lap and return the museum piece safely to Rob as his brother calls to check on proceedings.

I have no such reservations about the radial-mount six-piston calipers slowing the 847-pound 2025 Gold Wing Tour DCT. As far as footpegs go, Honda has plenty. I happily grind the left footpeg through turn one, the right footpeg through turn two, and each footpeg through the corresponding corners until the lap is over. The 2025 GL weighs 200 pounds more than its 1975 counterpart, but makes up for the disadvantage by producing approximately 40 more horsepower (120 hp at 5500 rpm) and 65 more pound-feet of torque (126 lb-ft at 4500 rpm) from its 1833cc Opposed Six-cylinder.

On our subsequent ride from Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama, to our destination in Daytona Beach, Florida, (more on that in a minute) I spent the first day aboard a seven-speed DCT model and the second day aboard a six-speed manual clutch model. Given the choice, I’ll take the DCT for public road riding every time. Depending on the rider mode selected (Tour, Sport, Econ, Rain) DCT will choose the appropriate gear. As aggressive as Sport mode is, DCT isn’t ready for track application even when manually switching gears utilizing the electronically selectable buttons on the left handlebar. There’s no doubt Honda didn’t intend for DCT to be used competitively, or for the Gold Wing, whether 1975 or 2025, to be on a racetrack, so why are we spinning laps around Barber in the first place?

Because it’s the Gold Wing’s 50th anniversary, and Honda has a four-day celebration planned. Visiting the world’s largest motorcycle museum (according to Guinness World Records), which has more than 1,800 motorcycles in its collection, and riding its adjacent racetrack with the first and current model Gold Wings seem absolutely appropriate as well as a great way to begin celebrations. It may also be a diversion from the fact that the Gold Wing attained this notable milestone and got nothing more than a lousy t-shirt.

In case you hadn’t already read in Dennis Chung’s 2025 Honda 50th Anniversary Gold Wing – First Look, “apart from the colors and some anniversary badging, the main change is removal of the Gold Wing’s native navigation system, leaving Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as the standard map software options.” Yep, kind of anticlimactic. Sorry old boy, but it’s better than what I got when I turned 50, which was a case of Covid-19.

My last ride aboard a Gold Wing was in 2012, when fellow former editor Pete Brissette and I compared it to the new-at-the-time BMW K 1600 GTL. A lot – a very large amount of a lot — has changed for the Gold Wing in the 13 years since that trip to Yosemite National Park. Beginning with its big overhaul in 2018, the GL has transformed into a more svelte version of its former self, weighing 83 pounds less, boasting double-wishbone front suspension, electric preload adjustment on the rear Showa shock, the DCT mentioned above, and CarPlay.

I’ve long advocated that manufacturers forego their native mapping in favor of CarPlay, and Honda has finally come around. Honda engineers even saw fit to offer the choice of wireless or wired connectivity. The function worked flawlessly on our trip to Daytona Beach, allowing me to seamlessly access my music, podcasts, text messages, and call kiddo from the road. What Honda needs to work on is CarPlay navigation. With no touchscreen or nifty wonder wheel found on some BMW models, you’re left with using the left handlebar-mounted multiswitch, where sometimes left is right, and up is down.

Over the two-day, 673-mile route from Bama to Daytona, I appreciated the placid ride afforded by the double-wishbone front suspension and the unobtrusive way the DCT chose the correct gear for the situation. The DCT worked well even when performing tight U-turns, requiring only a little rear brake application to smooth throttle inputs. The electrically adjustable rear shock is great for quick preload adjustments, but this motorcycle should be outfitted with semi-active suspension. Cruise control has been on the Gold Wing’s features and benefits menu since the 1985 Limited Edition GL1200 model, which points to another missing modern convenience, adaptive cruise control. You’d think Honda would use an auspicious occasion such as a 50th anniversary to leverage the addition of such technologies… you’d think.

Cool mornings and warm afternoons had me shedding layers, closing and opening vents, switching heated grips and seat on and off, and raising or lowering the electrically adjustable windscreen on our ride. Wind protection from the narrower fairing deflects the elements well enough, while the windscreen in the up position creates such a quiet bubble behind it, I had a phone conversation without the person on the other end knowing I was riding 70 mph, which happened to be on U.S. Highway 27 next to the famous Suwannee River.

During our trip Honda’s obsession with luring younger riders to the Gold Wing became apparent. With prices ranging from $25,200 on the low end for the standard 50th Anniversary Gold Wing to $33,500 for the 50th Anniversary Gold Wing Tour Airbag DCT, it’s not necessarily waning interest, it’s cost prohibitiveness. Considering the popularity of MotoAmerica’s King of the Baggers series, I suggest getting MotoAmerica to open the series to other baggers besides Indian and Harley-Davidson. I don’t know if increased sales of Road Glides and Challengers have resulted from the series, but Harley-Davidson just launched a $110,000 CVO Road Glide RR. Maybe Honda can force the issue by getting BMW to request entry for its K 1600 GT. The more, the merrier, right?

Two commemorative gifts will be provided for those who can afford a 50th Anniversary Wing: a 187-page coffee-table book and a 3D 1:12 scale model depicting the 1975 GL on one side and the 2025 GL on the other. On pages 80 and 81 of the commemorative tome is a picture of the 1990 Gold Wing 1500 SE in all its stunning two-tone pearlescent glory. The few hundred words by Cycle World contributing editor, Jamie Elvidge, speak of its luxuries and accompanying $13,498 MSRP. It's one story among dozens comprising the history of the Gold Wing penned by familiar moto-journalists including Kevin Cameron, Matthew Miles, and Mark Tuttle, Honda stalwarts including Peter Terhorst and Lee Edmunds, and an assortment of other key players invaluable to the evolution of the Gold Wing.

Our trip ends on the second day of Bike Week with a slow procession up Main Street, where biker culture is on full display. I say adios to my Wing and leave it in the Hard Rock Hotel parking lot. Visiting the Honda tent outside Daytona International Speedway the next day, I find Dennis Doyle’s 1975 GL1000 and Wings from each significant model year, including a 1980 GL1100, a 1984 GL1200, a 1988 GL1500, a 2001 GL1800, and a 2025 GL1800 50th Anniversary Edition, on display. It’s the Gold Wing’s family tree in a big red nutshell.

The birthday party concludes that night with attending the 52nd running of the Daytona Supercross. For Honda, it’s a shame their two factory riders, brothers Jett and Hunter Lawrence, are out due to injuries, but otherwise, it's a great way to cap the festivities of the last few days. For me, I can’t help but reminisce about the beginning of my powersports career when I was side saddling the same 1990 Gold Wing 1500 SE seen in the book, waiting to greet the next potential Honda owner to enter the dealership where I was working. Since then, I’ve aged, while the Gold Wing has refined.

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