25 Years Ago August, 1982
25 YEARS AGO AUGUST, 1982
The "Double Nickel Rockets" cover story was a four-bike middleweight comparison of the Kawasaki GPz550, Suzuki GS550M, Yamaha Seca 550 and Yamaha Vision. Just like today, a clear winner was hard to pick but, overall, the Kawasaki was the top choice, followed by the Suzuki and the two Yamahas.
• The magazine was loaded with sin gle-bike tests, covering Honda's XL25OR, Yamaha's Seca 400, Suzuki's RM80Z and my personal favorite-a full dirt test of KTM's 495 Pro-Lever. Price of the bike was high at $2831-almost $500 more than its Japanese equivalent. Looks like things haven't changed much. Another thing that hasn't changed was the conclu sion, which stated that Open-class bikes are not for beginners; they have too much power, too much weight and too much of almost everything else. All in the name of fun, though.
• A product evaluation called “Up To Speed” demonstrated the conversion of then-mandated 85-mph speedometers into 140-mph units.
• Race Watch reported that King Kenny Roberts won the opening round of the 1982 500cc Grand Prix series in Argentina with Barry Sheene second. On the dirt front, Brad Lackey was leading the 500cc motocross world championship series after three rounds.
• Letters had Gayle Moreland from Yucaipa,
California, asking what beverage our editors drink before writing the captions for Slipstream. Heck, I wish I knew, because I haven’t had one make that page yet... -Ryan Dudek
