2026 Germany Audit

Audit of Honda VF1000 motorcycles on the German vehicle register, from Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt (KBA) data. Stock at 1 January 2026.

There were 188 Honda VF1000 motorcycles on the German register at the start of 2026. The KBA files them under just two type keys, both under manufacturer key (HSN) 7100, HONDA MOTOR (J):

• TSN 255 — listed as “VF 1000 FII” — 162 machines
• TSN 256 — “VF 1000 R” — 26 machines

The type key is wider than its name suggests. “VF 1000 FII” does not mean 162 F2s. It is the type-approval label for the whole SC15 family — the VF1000F, FE, FF and F2 — which shared one German type approval (ABE). Only the R carries its own type, the SC16. So TSN 255 is best read as “VF1000 (SC15)” and TSN 256 as “VF1000 R (SC16)”.

The German register therefore cannot tell us how many of each SC15 variant survive. Unlike the UK data — where the Department for Transport breaks the model down by FE, FF, F2F, RE, RF and RG — Germany groups the entire SC15 family under a single number.

The German VF1000 population has fallen by 36% in five years, from 294 to 188. Both type keys have declined steadily; the SC15 family accounts for most of the loss in absolute terms, simply because it is the larger group.

What the German figure is — and is not. The KBA counts vehicles on the register at 1 January. Germany has no equivalent of the UK’s Statutory Off Road Notification: a machine that is taken off the road and de-registered leaves the register altogether, and does not sit in a separate “SORN” column. That makes the German figure a count of currently registered machines. It is closest in meaning to the UK’s licensed count at the same date (72 at Q1 2026), not to the UK’s total of 461 — the two headline numbers must not be compared directly.

A second caveat: the figure is a floor, not a census. Machines type-approved outside Germany are keyed by the KBA under a collective number (TSN 000) rather than under the model’s German type, and so do not appear under TSN 255 or 256 at all. A grey-import VF1000 can therefore be on the road in Germany and invisible in this count. The KBA’s companion table for motorcycles (FZ 2.6) does carry a large “sonstige / nicht getypt” pool for Honda that we cannot break down by model. The true number of VF1000s in Germany is therefore at least 188, and probably somewhat higher.

An open question. Germany’s red “07” plate lets a collection of historic vehicles be used without each one being separately registered. Whether machines held that way appear in these figures is unconfirmed, and may mean a further small number is missing. We have flagged it rather than guessed.

These figures come from the KBA’s published FZ 6.1 table (“Bestand an Kraftfahrzeugen und Kraftfahrzeuganhängern nach Herstellern und Typen am 1. Januar”), which is open data and needs no request. See also the UK audits: 2011, 2015 Q2 and 2026.