Honda's legendary V4 engine has been a mainstay of Honda's range more several decades now and its widely seen as being one of the best power plants ever made. With a lovely throaty sound and plenty of torque which means that it's really forgiving and pulls like a train in every gear. With the huge success that Honda had with the VFR800F, it was a natural progression for them to develop a crossover variant which took advantage of V4 engine.
