I’ve recently had a sleepless night where by I burned the late evening oil wanting at bikes to acquire. Just after shedding out on a Buell Ulysses with 80,000 miles and a Yamaha CS5, I got the sudden hankering for a little something offbeat. I have now owned a scooter with a pop-up headlight, but what about a motorbike? As it turns out, Suzuki dabbled with pop-up headlights in the 1980s with a single of the raddest bikes you are going to ever see. This is the Suzuki GSX750S Katana.
The Suzuki Katana’s tale begins in the early 1980s. Again then, as Motorcycle Classics notes, Suzukis were being recognised for their pace, but their designs felt stale to the obtaining general public. To rectify this, Suzuki brought on German BMW motorcycle designer Hans Muth. His Bavarian Focus on Layout company, consisting of himself, Jan Fellstrom and Hans-Georg Kasten, would breathe fresh air into Suzuki’s style.
Or much more especially, Muth’s target was to design some thing so out there that it would attract people today into showrooms.
In late 1980, Target’s operate strike the street as the GS1000SZ Katana. And Suzuki did not just launch a bicycle with a distinct style and design. Suzuki claimed the Katana to be the quickest mass-output motorbike. Even although it experienced the similar operating gear as the GSX1100E, the Katana was uncovered to hit 147 mph to the GSX1100E’s 142 mph.
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Suzuki’s futuristic Katana was a results, but it would not cease there. Appearing in 1984 was the model of the Katana that you are studying this for.
Promoting together with the huge liter Katana were more compact 550cc, 650cc and 750cc versions for these who liked the seems but didn’t have to have the electric power. These would get updates in excess of time and in 1984, consumers would be treated to a person of the coolest wanting bikes of the 1980s.
The Suzuki GSX750S arrived with a GSX750E’s 16-valve 747cc inline four making 84 HP. That’s superior electric power for an 1980s 750, but the star of the present is the bike’s style.
Suzuki redesigned the motorbike to be smooth and uncluttered. In which the more mature models had transform indicators that caught out and a huge blocky headlight, this one particular would be all flush. Yep, seem carefully and you’ll see the change indicators built-in into the fairing. And yep, you get a superb pop-up headlight.
The bike also boasted a lessen seat peak than preceding products and greater bars for superior comfort. Suzuki managed to shave 35 lbs off of the thing, much too.
You may be questioning why you have not found any of these in The us and the respond to is that we just did not get them. We did get the elegant Katana with out the flush bits and the pop-up headlight. Bradley even wrote about a sizzling rod Katana in 2020.
As an alternative, if you want a single of these you will have to uncover one particular in a further place. Thankfully, they do present up in Japan, ready for you to import a single.
As for the Katana in The usa, in the late 1980s the name bought applied to the unrelated Suzuki GSX-F, exactly where it trapped all over right until 2006. The Katana returned at the time all over again in 2019 with a style and design that phone calls back to the first.