Outkast – 1993 Yamaha GTS1000

1993 Yamaha GTS1000

There’s a famous song you may have heard at proms, birthday parties, late nights out, etc from the early 2000s. Today, “Hey Ya!” by OutKast is a massively popular hit and is still frequently utilized by DJ across the country to get people singing along. However, the story wasn’t always so rosy. Before “Hey Ya!” really became popular, it was actually hated by radio listeners. The sound itself was fairly new and it was unlike anything that was playing on the radio. People weren’t familiar with the sound and therefore it never did well. To make the song a hit, the radio DJs had to play songs that sounded similar but not identical before they played “Hey Ya!” to ease the listener in if you will. The rest is history. All of that is to say that the balance between familiarity and novelty is not one that you can ignore.

In the the case of the GTS1000, the Japanese motorcycle heavyweight may have done just that. More than one manufacturer have made such a mistake and while the manufacturers often bear the brunt of the cost, the consumers are often left with a hands-on experience with some of the weird things on the whiteboards at these companies.

The gist of the design on the GTS is to eliminate many of the engineering trade offs one has to make when going with a conventional fork design. Of course, traditional forks are simpler and lighter but when you combine the steering and suspension functionality into one part, it becomes difficult to optimize the part for both functions. The GTS essentially uncoupled the steering and suspension functions which allowed the engineers to uncouple the impact of suspension inputs on steering and vice versa. Furthermore, the wider mounting points of the front swingarm allow the GTS to spread the torsional cornering forces across a much bigger area as opposed to the narrow nature of a steering stem/triple tree setup.

Another benefit was the how the bike moved under braking. The rigid-mounting of the caliper to the steering upright meant the braking force extended the swingarm which offsets the weight of the bike compressing the swingarm. However, the trade off you make to separate these components is you add complexity and cost which are equally important to the a consumer.

The saving grace for this bike is that none of the technology itself is actually new. It’s simply a reorganization. The motor is from an FZR1000 and the other systems are all run-of-the-mill Yamaha. This means the bike itself is solid and reliable. The only question should be if the front end works cohesively and naturally.

If you were to pay MSRP-type money for this bike, I would make sure the question above is addressed. However, the question for this bike today really has to do with how much you value a different experience. If you find vehicle dynamics to be interesting, this could be right up your alley as nothing will highlight the pros and cons of traditional motorcycle engineering like riding a bike that isn’t traditional.

The bid on this example with 3.6k mi is at $4.5k with 4 days remaining at the time of publishing. RSBFS sold a GTS1000 with 52k mi as a Featured Listing in 9/22 for $5k. Being in pristine cosmetic condition with only 3.6k mi, I would expect this to transact at a materially higher level. The overall condition, uniqueness, and rarity should only benefit the economics of such a deal in the future. Follow the bid here and good luck at the block.

Thanks for reading!

Norm