Considering just how rare Bimotas actually are, they’ve had a pretty strong influence on modern sportbikes. Take this Bimota HB3 for example: just 100 were ever made. And yet you can see that fully-faired, race-inspired styling that led to more mass-produced bikes like the GSX-R. In fact, Yamaha was very directly “inspired” by the Bimota’s…
While many of the 80s bikes we’ve featured recently look relentlessly forward, spending their lives on the bleeding-edge of sportbike design, other manufacturers were necessarily stuck in the past, limited by budgets and working to maximize the potential of existing, sometimes moribund designs like today’s Laverda RGS1000. Laverda had certainly earned its fair share of…
With the other manufacturers building their exotic turbocharged 80s confections around more sophisticated four-cylinder designs, why did Honda base their CX650 Turbo on a bike that was so ugly, the British press dubbed it the “plastic maggot”? Well even though a simple, pushrod v-twin seems to go against the high-tech theme these motorcycles embodied, the…
Laverda’s big-bruiser RGS1000 comes from an era when the European brands were struggling in the face of the Japanese Big Four’s onslaught. To keep pace required serious levels of financial and manufacturing muscle, and most of the European brands just could not compete. Some, like BMW hung on to a niche market, with loyal sport-touring…
A bike with skinny tires and a wide powerband, the Fabio Taglioni-designed Ducati TT2 bears a passing resemblance to the roadgoing F1, but was tuned to perfection, utilizing a philosophy that resulted in a lightweight, very nimble package with a broad spread of useable power that made it ideal for roadcourses. Displacement was up slightly…
The GS1100ES was the last-hurrah for Suzuki’s twin-shock sportbikes, a forgotten middle child sandwiched between the classic, Wes Cooley era GS1000S and the modern icon GSX-R. But for a few years, this was as good as it got. And it established the template for the later GSX-R: it wasn’t the most powerful bike, but it…
In an era of mass-produced sportbikes, it’s easy to miss the details that made bikes like the Bimota SB4 so special. Virtually every modern manufacturer makes concessions to mass-production, and machines that, at first glance, look gorgeous can get a bit ugly in the details. MV Agusta’s F3 675 is a beautiful sleek, wasp of…
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada Mileage: 1,637 Price: Auction, $7,900 BIN The Yamaha RZ350 enjoyed a short life here in the U.S. as one of the few two stroke street bikes to ever grace our shores. And it also made life here as the Kenny Roberts edition, in honor of one of the greatest American GP…