Established in the early 1920s, Horex was a German motorcycle manufacturer that has seen several ups and downs over the decades – including several different owners over some turbulent times. Some partners included Floyd Clymer (who tried to sell these under the Indian name in the 50s) and Friedl Munch (who famously built the Mammut/Mammoth). In 1989, Horex partnered with CK Design in Japan to create the 644 OSCA, which utilizes the single-cylinder engine found in a Honda Dominator NX650.
CK Design was the brainchild of Kazuo Sasaki, who worked at Honda from 1970-1979, mostly in styling on bikes like the GL1000, CB350F, and even the RCB racer. As noted in this great interview, he left Honda at the age of 32:
“It was my goal to create the ideal motorcycle, but I also recognized that it was impossible. One of the reasons I left Honda was that I wanted to work overseas. I realized my dream, but in 1980 I became independent as CK Design. As I worked on a wide range of projects, mainly motorcycles, I was shocked by how many things there were in the world that did not have blueprints. That would have been impossible at Honda. It was really just the right timing to realize OSCA, but I was worried about whether I should do it or not.” The “OSCA” name came about as a reverse reading of his first name, Kazuo.
In 1986, Sasaki approached Horex about possibly importing their machines to Japan, and that eventually led to the creation of this machine. The first model was released in 1991, and that led to a Corsa model as well as a factory race bike which set the lap record at Tsukuba for air-cooled singles. There were also plans to create a 1000 cc model with either the motor from an air-cooled Ducati motor or Honda VTR but that never came to fruition.
Here’s probably the only video you’ll find of one of these. I really look forward to seeing where this bike ends up, I love thumper sport bikes!
The seller of this example says that about 50 of these bikes were ever built. It has approximately 13,000 miles and the original MSRP was about $30k. Find this Horex for sale in Seattle, Washington for $14,000 here at SODO Moto.