This bike started it all for me

Good memories from you guys.
( 84-85 was the last of the breed. It was the year "before" sport bikes changed forever.)

The 81-85 GPz550 was a great bike! Ist & 2nd gen
Most GPZ550s with a pipe were just as fast as the 750 GPz ..a couple friends had em with the requisite Kerker pipe..750 guys were always pissed off.
Then a good friend had that 85 Interceptor 500.
He would lay down white stripes on every freeway on ramp dragging that chin cowling on the pavement
He got that thing LOW...
I remember the summer of 1983...I was 15 yrs old riding in our families camper on vacation through Arizona when, while reading Cycle or Motorcyclist magazine I viewed a photo of the yellow and black RZ350 in the "Headed to America next yr preview"
Boy was I excited...!
Having a fixation on RD400s ..I couldn't wait!
All these bike ,even 750s & 1000s prior to 84-85..115-130 mph was the absolute limit!
Then Kawasaki changed everything thing with the 84 Ninja 900s & 1985 600 , followed by Suzuki & the seminal GSXR750 in 1986 !!
Within 2 years, just 24 months..motorcycles were capable of 1/4 miles in the 10 second range and 150 mph top speed, it was a massive restructuring of the world order of motorcycle development and performance, then just 3yrs later Yamaha introduced the 1989 FZR1000 .
Quite likely the father of all modern superbikes, 1st bike w radials, 1st EXUP butterfly valve, 1st 5.0" rear wheel ,delivering low 10 sec 1/4 mile times and a real actual 170 mph top speed!
Here is me the day I brought mine home..
1989 Just 21 yrs old and a $7600.00 dollar motorcycle..( dumb thing to do.. .but I would have died had I not bought that machine that summer..lol,)

bye bye RZ350s! Lol this bike was 20 mph faster in the 1/4 mile than my RZ was flat out top speed, down hill with a tailwind + the FZR would then stack another 40 + mph on top of that !!
The FZR was a monster of a motor machine, and handling to match..
Man I Loved that bike!!

 

who the hell are you??? has to be AI/// jealous my brother!!

 

Of all things a pullstart minibike. GT185 to get my license. Rds and RZs galore. An odd Bridgestone 350. A Honda CB175 and CBR600F.
The RZs with upgrades still give me adrenaline rushes.

 

First big bike I bought brand new at dealer back in 89, totaled it twice . Had fj1100 before it.
I did typical European thing, 50cc-90cc-250-350...
I grew up riding MZ250 and Jawa 350, those were big bikes for us.

 

This one is parked in my yard for reminder

 

LOL those were what passed for riding boots when you're 18 years old.

 

The one that started my need for speed was the classic Kawasaki H1, 500, three cylinder two smoker. I had one for a kind of short period of time and then I heard about the H2 750, 3 cylinder. In 1974 I bought a pristine 1972 model from an old man that had put a fairing on it and was using it for a kind of sport touring bike. I immediately removed the fairing, swapped the shifter to GP shift and headed to the dragstrip to see what it and I could do. Soon thereafter, a set of Denco expansion chambers went on and a rejet of the carbs and I spent an entire summer (1974) at the local drag strips on Wed night and Sat. night running ET bracket with it. That was probably one of the best summers of my life as I look back in time. My best time on that bike, which by today's standards is not too great, but in 1974 it was smokin' fast....figuratively and literally.......11.89 @113 through the 1/4 mile

 

Don't take any shit, I had the same boots

 

Did you?

Or were you two in such a hurry to get them back on you grabbed the other guy’s?

 

The first steet bike I had that made me want to go around corners was a CB 400 F Honda. It handled good but was slow.

 

[QUOTE="rd400racer, post: 6087894, member: 14150"Next to it was the white CBX sport touring version and one of their new Turbo's..[/QUOTE]
IN '83 I was window shopping at the Coopersburg , PA dealer when I spied this massive white thing back in the maintenance shop. I asked the salesguy what was it...a CBX. Shortly thereafter I started looking for one. You young'uns don't remember looking in the newspaper classifieds everyday for something to appear. If you really wanted it it wouldn't ever show up! Then, in '95 (still mostly pre-web days) I'm at JB Honda and l see two CBXs, a white and a black, in the back of the shop! Turns out they were the owners so I start the pestering process...you gotta sell me one! After 2 years of this he gives up and the white one was mine. Interesting bike, quite complex but heavy and sort of flexible in the middle. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

 

I thought the CBX looked so good I wore out pictures of them from staring.

 

IN '83 I was window shopping at the Coopersburg , PA dealer when I spied this massive white thing back in the maintenance shop. I asked the salesguy what was it...a CBX. Shortly thereafter I started looking for one. You young'uns don't remember looking in the newspaper classifieds everyday for something to appear. If you really wanted it it wouldn't ever show up! Then, in '95 (still mostly pre-web days) I'm at JB Honda and l see two CBXs, a white and a black, in the back of the shop! Turns out they were the owners so I start the pestering process...you gotta sell me one! After 2 years of this he gives up and the white one was mine. Interesting bike, quite complex but heavy and sort of flexible in the middle. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. View attachment 208781 [/QUOTE]


Now I would be a happy man to have that CBX, but to a 20 year old in 1981 it looked like a barge. And it's worth about 3 times what my 750F is today

 

I actually sold it a few years ago. I wasn't riding it much and it was a SOB to keep in prime shape. Those 6 carbs were prone to gumming up if not run often. Also, if you really tried to take it down a bendy road at a good speed you could feel it flexing in the middle....scary sh*t.

 

Sounding a lot like an urban legend, but experienced by me personally. That "last year" CBX in your picture was produced during the time of Harley lawsuits, Japanese "market flooding", etc. And there were a lot of dealers that had more bikes in stock than they could reasonably sell. There was a multi-brand dealer in Orlando who specialized in picking up and moving this over-stock.

I used to go in there every so often to see what they were "unloading". At one point they had a half-dozen of these faired and bagged CBXes in crates (white/blue ones and gray/black ones). They were asking $3500 (which was almost half list price as I recall), but they could be had cheaper if you could haul them away in the crate. My Dad already had an earlier CBX, so wasn't interested. I just thought it was too big of a bike for me at the time, and I was wanting sport bikes then. Another one they had a bunch of was Honda GB500's. They were even cheaper. I was mildly interested then, but would love to have one now!

This is also why you often see bikes of this era in vocational school small engine programs. They were donating them to such organizations in bulk!

 

Do you mean radial tires or radial flat-slide carbs? Just curious, as I believe my 1986 GSX-R had very early radial tires. They were hard as rocks and very tough to get on/off a rim, so were replaced pretty early.

Definitely right about the 5-inch wheel though. The early GSX-R crowd were always looking to swap parts from later GSX-Rs, and 17-inch wheels off of later models was popular. As I recall, 89's had 4.5 inch wheels and you had to find a 90 to get a 5.5 inch wheel (GP stuff!).

 

Ironically, that's the European color scheme.

 

I remember that you could pick up a crated CBX well into the 90's for that price. They were everywhere!