PAST FORWARD

What if you held a retro party… and nobody came? In 2019, that’s very close to being a ridiculous question. Right now, the retro party is in full swing and everybody from BMW to Yamaha has slipped a ’70s-style dress over their modern-as-tomorrow underwear.

Twenty-two years ago, however, the notion of deliberately evoking the past in a big-bore sportbike seemed just a little… strange. It was the era of the mighty ZX-11, ram-air GSX-R750, and ethereally gorgeous Ducati 916. Why look back, when the present itself was bright enough to require sunglasses?

Ah, but there was something missing in that lineup of