Honda Has Built A Real Pokémon

This headline isn’t a joke. Honda has taken it upon itself to fulfil many of our childhood wishes, and build a real, working Pokémon. However, it’s not some sort of full-size Charizard ready to Fire Spin everything in sight – this one is a motorbike.

For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with modern Pokémon games, the latest main series entries – Violet and Scarlet – carry on the tradition of legendary pocket monsters emblazoned across the covers. In those cases, that’s Miraidon and Koraidon.

Both can be used as a form of transport in the open-world games. Miraidon covers the ground on air sacks that look an awful lot like the wheels of a motorbike, so surely that’s the one Honda would turn its attention to?

Well, no, actually. Instead, Honda has made a functional version of Koraidon, an ancient Pokémon that covers the ground by… walking on all fours. Granted, it does that rather quickly.

The real reason Koraidon was chosen is that Toyota has, incredibly, already built a Miraidon. That was put together by its in-house Engineering Society as a technical showcase to then go on display.

Honda admits that fact, and decided to respond with its take on Koraidon. 40 engineers from the manufacturer’s bike and powertrain divisions were roped in, and Honda notes its Koraidon features self-balancing technology.

It’s unclear at this stage what is powering Koraidon, though we’d hazard a guess that it’s electric-powered. That’d align with Toyota’s choice of propulsion, in which case, we can’t wait to see that drag race.

We’re yet to see the full thing, so stay tuned for more pictures once it's revealed. It’ll go on display for the weekend of 7-9 March at Honda Welcome Plaza Aoyama, in case you’re in the area and fancy seeing it with your own eyes.