Spied! Suzuki's Big-Bore Blaster
SPIED! SUZUKI'S BIG-BORE BLASTER
ROUNDUP
SUZUKI'S RIP-SNORTIN', 170-mph GSX-R750 doesn't trip your trigger, eh? Hang on to your heart rate, then, because Hamamatsu is readying an even hotter Open-class version of its award-winning superbike.
Spy photos published in Germany's Motorrad magazine reveal a pre-production GSX-R1000 clad in bodywork virtually identical—right down to the decals and graphics—to the current GSX-R750.
Touted as the machine that will topple Honda’s CBR929RR and Yamaha’s YZF-R l, the year-2001 model uses the 750’s headlight, upper fairing and seat, with a slightly wider lower cowling to accommodate the bigger four-cylinder engine. Fairing mounting points and vents are also altered.
Little is known about the new engine itself, other than that it will be liquid-cooled, fuel-injected and displace perhaps 988cc, making it legal for World Superbike, should the scries opt for the proposed I-liter limit on all machines in the future.
The frame is based on that of the GSX-R750, but the twin aluminum spars are slightly
farther apart, again to allow for the new powerplant. The fork sliders fitted to the prototype wear a racy titanium-nitride coating, and both fork and shock are fully adjustable. Sixpiston Tokico brake calipers replace the four-piston stoppers used on the 750. The discs, however, are the same, measuring 320mm in diameter.
As if a new Open-class rocketship isn’t enough, the nextgeneration CÏSX-R600 was also spotted being put through its paces. It, too, wore 750 plastic, with the most obvious differences being fitment of a conventional fork instead of the bigger bikes’ inverted designs, and an unbraced swingarm.
Look for both bikes to be unveiled in early September at the Munich Show, with the GSXR600 on sale shortly thereafter. The GSX-R1000 should hit dealerships in the spring.
Mathew Miles
