1986 Cycle World Cover - FJ1200 - No Mirrors?

[Lotsokids]

Where are the mirrors? It's odd to promote a new bike, but take the mirrors off for the photos.

I know those mirrors are ugly, but really?

[Pat Conlon]

Yeppers, SOP in the old days, for high speed measurements.

As I recall, the feeling at the time was that the testers were nervous about handlebar mounted mirrors. They worried about hinkey handling at high speeds if a crosswind should occur.
So in the effort to be uniform across the board all the mirrors, handlebar mounted, or fairing mounted, came off for speed comparisons between models.
The added coefficient of drag was prolly worth ~3 to 4 mph at speeds above 130....Especially the big mouse ears that were bar mounted on the '84/85's

Remember this was the time... where for the first time in history.... a customer (like me) could walk in and buy a honest 150mph sub 11 second STREET bike.

Cheers!   Pat