Suzuki’s GSX-R series, introduced amid great fanfare and carrying the
company’s highest hopes in 1985, is synonymous with performance and has become
one of the most evocative marques in motorcycling. Without question, the GSX-R
turned sport motorcycling upside down. Its groundbreaking design established an
entirely new category of race-replica motorcycles, in effect bravely pushing the
sport into an area where no other manufacturer dared to go. And, just as
important, Suzuki forced competing manufacturers to respond to the GSX-R by
taking up new technologies and often abandoning their own favored designs. To
say the GSX-R forced the hand of sportbike makers everywhere is a dramatic
understatement.
This book explores the roots of the original GSX-R750 concept, its showroom
and racetrack successes, and how its eye-opening performance, lightweight
design, and charismatic personality established a new market segment that Suzuki
continues to define. Each generation of the GSX-R family is explored through
interviews with Suzuki engineers and designers. Suzuki as a company garners
impressive loyalty from its employees. Virtually every member of the original
GSX-R development staff is still associated with Suzuki, and they all offer
recollections of the bike’s gestation, providing priceless insight on the
breakneck-speed engineering required to bring a light, fast race bike to the
street.
Racing, literally the raison d’être for the GSX-R, is carefully reviewed
along the way, including the national and World Superbike competition histories
of each generation. Every aspect of the GSX-R’s racing experience—the great wins
and the near misses—has helped inform the design of the street bike, which, in
turn, formed the basis of the next generation of race bikes. Suzuki’s slogan,
“Born on the track, returned to the track,” is more than just marketing speak—it
is the engineering credo.
Readers will be taken inside the off-limits Ryuyo R & D center and
proving ground, where the engineering and development of the GSX-R models are
carried out. This is followed by a virtual factory tour that shows a GSX-R being
built step-by-step. Suzuki GSX-R: A Legacy of Performance is the complete
insider’s look at the most influential and winning marque in motorcycling.
