GSX-R is undoubtedly one of the most recognisable ranges in motorcycling. Dominating the UK sports bike scene for 25 years, it may be familiar, but here are some facts you may not know.
As well as the current 600, 750 and 1000cc models, GSX-Rs have also come in 50, 250, 400 and 1100cc versions.
· The 1985 GSX-R750F featured piston-cooling from oil jets which squirted up underneath the piston crowns. Suzuki took the idea from the Merlin engines used in WWII Spitfire aircraft
· Suzuki engineers tried to destruction test an early 750F motor by running it continuously for 30 hours – but it never broke!
· The total number of components in the GSX-R750F frame was just 26 parts – down from 96 on the previous GSX750.
· The first upside-down or ‘inverted’ forks on a GSX-R were on a race-bike and made from cut-down motocross forks
· Suspension combinations on the 1992 GSX-R750WN were in the millions
· April 8th 1993 was the day Suzuki decided to build a beam-framed GSX-R, scrapping the double-cradle layout that had previously been the model’s signature…
· The original GSX-R400 had a aluminium beam frame and not a double cradle frame
· The 1996 GSX-R750WT SRAD was based on the dimensions of Kevin Schwantz’s 1993 500cc championship winning RGV500 – but its wheelbase was still shorter than the GP bike!
· Kevin Schwantz claimed that as the 2000 GSX-R750Y had five bhp more than his 1988 Yoshimura GSX-R race bike, he could have taken pole and won the race that year on a standard 750Y road bike!
· At the same launch Schwantz – on a stock 750 – was only ten seconds off the Misano lap record.
· The first Suzuki GSX-R600 came out in 1992 in the USA and it was simply a sleeved-down version of the GSX-R750
· Suzuki’s first GSX-R success in World Superbikes came with Gary Goodfellow in 1988 but the GSX-R family had to wait until 2005 for the WSB title with Troy Corser.
· More acronyms have come off the back of GSX-R development than any other machine! From DAIS (Direct Air Intake System) to SRAD (Suzuki Ram Air Direct) around twenty have been coined since 1985!
· The SRAD model of 1996 was the same weight as the original, but with 25% more power!
· The current GSX-R1000K9 weighs in at twenty kilos less than the last GSX-R400RR model but boasts almost four-times the power!
Bertie Simmonds - Author of Suzuki GSX-R750 - Published by Haynes.