March 6 2015.


Gerald Davison, a former Director of UK Operations for Honda, has just celebrated 55 years of motorcycling by taking delivery of a new Honda VFR800X from Branson’s Motorcycles in Yeovil.

A mere 72-years-young, Gerald said; “Having been infected with the motorcycling bug in my early teenage years, growing up in London during the 1950s, I have never lost my passion for the unique freedom and enjoyment that motorcycling brings and the new 2015 Honda VFR800X embodies all that I find exciting about current motorcycle design together with its iconic V4 engine.”

Gerald joined Honda during its formative years and went on to develop the UK market for Honda cars and motorcycles as well as forging a friendship with the company’s founder Soichiro Honda. He was also responsible for Honda’s return to all forms of motor sport in the late 1970s as the first director of the Honda International Racing Company, which later became known as ‘HRC’. After almost 20 years with the company, Gerald left Honda in 1985.

Life after Honda saw Gerald become Executive Chairman of The Keep Trust Plc (which just happened to include the Bristol Kawasaki Centre) which he built into a 20-site motor group, was then sold to Arriva Plc and Norfolk Finance Ltd and then later sold to GE Finance Corp. This was followed by the Executive Chairmanship of a start-up motor group Millennium Plc. He also served as an independent director of the venture capitalist 3i Group Plc and a non-executive director of Fowlers Motorcycles, Bristol.


Pictured; Gerald taking delivery of his new Honda from Paul Branson