Looking at pictures of me riding ‘old’ bikes, I often ask myself questions and the first with the Suzuki GSR600 is: ‘Why didn’t it become a sales success?’
The answer may be found at the end of this article, but simply looking at this bike, there is a lot to love.
Firstly the elephant in the room: yes, it looks very modern, perhaps too modern for CMM, but bear with me, this bike is 17 years old and therefore perfect Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club fodder! Basically, back in 2000 Suzuki put out a concept at the Tokyo Show using a supercharged Hayabusa engine of some 240bhp in a naked motorcycle which they called the B-King. It stole shows and it stole hearts, but the bike itself would not materialise until 2007 and even then in a very neutered form, ‘sans blower’ and some would say soulless as a result. But… a year before you could get something resembling a mini-B-King and this is it, the Suzuki GSR600.
Suzuki’s GSR600 was developed using the GSX-R600 K4/K5 motor but wrapped up in styling that was definitely nothing other than
