‘The Ultimate UJM’
‘It was a short but highly entertaining ride and probably the biggest thrashing that this GS, which had remained unused for years until recently being put back on the road, had been given for at least a decade’
A RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK WAS just what was needed to get the best out of the GS550. The shop I needed to get to was due to close in 15 minutes' time — and I'd normally have allowed slightly longer than that to get there on a modern bike, let alone an elderly middleweight that I hadn't set eyes on until a few hours earlier.
Fortunately, the GS550 rose to the challenge. On the stretches of open road, the little air-cooled four put in some impressive bursts of acceleration as I revved it through the gears with the confidence that its elderly but famously unburstable motor wouldn't complain. And on the twistier bits the Suzuki handled and braked pretty well, too.
It was a short but highly entertaining ride and probably the biggest thrashing that this GS, which had remained unused for years until recently being put back on the road, had been given for at least a decade. Reaching the shop just before closing time meant my main aim had been achieved. Equally importantly, the adrenaline-filled journey had proved that you can have a lot of fun on Suzuki's first four-stroke middleweight — even if it was originally known more for competence and reliability than excitement.
When Suzuki released the 550 in 1977, as a follow-up to the superb GS750 four that had appeared earlier the same year, it was only the second serious four-stroke that the firm had ever built. The GS arrived to enthusiastic reviews and was considered every bit as good as the two Honda CB550 models that were its only four-cylinder middleweight opposition.
Suzuki had done well to produce a genuine 175-km/h, smooth, and stable mini-superbike at a very competitive price and the GS quickly became a sales success in most markets. However, once the initial euphoria had worn off, the 550's anonymous looks (it closely resembled the larger GS) and lack of distinguishing features meant it made less of an impact than its performance deserved.
In those days, someone had coined the expression Universal Japanese Motorcycle, “UJM” for short, to describe the format of the unfaired four-cylinder roadster which had risen during the 1970s to dominate motorcycling following the introduction of Honda's CB750 in 1969. The GS550 summed up the trend so perfectly — being competent, reliable, efficient, and quick, but a bit short on character or originality — that it became known as the “ultimate UJM”.
Technically as well as visually, the 550 owed much to the GS750 with which Suzuki had burst on to the four-stroke superbike market only a few months earlier. With its twin front disc brakes (the rival Honda CB550 K3 had only one), identical 19-inch front, 18-inch rear wheel combination, DOHC eight-valve engine, twin-downtube frame, and slightly flipped-up tailpiece behind a thick dual-seat, the GS550 could easily be mistaken for the larger machine at a glance.
The smaller bike had square 56 x 55.8-millimetre engine dimensions for a capacity of 549 cubic centimetres and produced a maximum of 51 hp at 9,000 rpm, compared to the GS750's 68 hp at 8,500 rpm. Its 1,473-mm wheelbase was 25 mm shorter than the 750's and the GS550 was 20
kilograms lighter, at 209 kg with five litres of fuel, although, strangely, its 800-mm seat height meant the 550 was slightly taller.
This blue bike is a GS550E, built in 1978, and differs from the previous year's 550D by having cast instead of wire-spoked wheels and a rear disc brake instead of a drum. It was in superb condition for an unrestored machine, its lack of corrosion due to the fact that it had spent many years sitting in a sawmill, covered in moisture-removing wood chippings. With barely more than 20,000 miles (32,186 km) on the speedo in its plastic console — something of a novelty in its day, especially as the warning lights included a gear indicator — the Suzuki looked in better condition than many bikes a fraction of its age.
It was obviously in pretty good shape internally, too. Several years after the GS had been released, a magazine stripped the engine of a well-used bike for a technical feature and found almost no signs of wear at all. They were impressed, to put it mildly. So, I wasn't remotely surprised when this bike fired up instantly on the button, idled easily with a familiar air-cooled mechanical rustle and pulled away with the basically smooth but slightly buzzy feel typical of the air-cooled fours of its era.
With barely 50 horsepower on tap, this bike did not promise too many wild and scary moments. Especially as the four-pot motor was well-mannered and gentle rather than dramatic in its power delivery, getting stronger as the revs rose towards the red-line without ever really hitting a power-band.
That combined with typically efficient controls and levers to make the Suzuki easy to ride. And although this bike didn't feel quite as crisp as I'd expected low down, possibly because the bank of 22-mm Mikuni carbs needed a bit more tweaking following the bike's lengthy lay-up, it was responsive enough to make whirring past lines of traffic a breeze.
After setting out on that race against the clock, I was glad that Suzuki had fitted the bike with a six-speed gearbox, instead of a five-speeder like the GS750's. Keeping the 550 on the boil by flicking up and down its sweet-changing box was easy, and the motor remained fairly smooth even when approaching its 9,500-rpm red-line, though power dropped off before that point so there was no point in revving it that high.
Given a long enough straight with my chin on the tank, this bike would probably have been capable of matching the 175km/h top speed and 14-second standing quarter-mile that were regarded as highly impressive when the GS was new. (The GS750, by comparison, was 19 km/h faster and a second quicker over the quarter.) Testers of the day were more impressed by the ease with which the 550 cruised at 145 km/h — proof that motorcyclists had stronger arm and neck muscles in the days before fairings (and speed cameras) became common.
The Suzuki's chassis also drew much praise, which was no surprise given the bike's similarity to the fine-handling GS750. Back in the late '70s, it was still refreshing to find a bike that could hit a 160 km/h-plus top speed and go round fast curves without breaking into a wobble. Having managed this in producing the larger model, Suzuki's engineers stuck to a very similar design and the 550's stability inspired comments such
Suzuki's old flat-barred naked roadsters, with their sensible, slightly leant-forward riding positions and thick seats, were generally pretty comfortable, too, so long as you didn't go in for too much high-speed cruising. There were certainly no comfort problems on my short ride and I ended up with a new-found respect for the GS550 as a capable, do-it-all machine that must have given outstanding performance for the price in its day.
The GS550 played its part in establishing Suzuki as a producer of four-stroke motorbikes, too. This bike and the GS750 were rapidly followed in 1978 by the GS1000 — again with similar styling and DOHC fourcylinder engine layout — to complete an impressive trio on which the firm's subsequent machines were based. The GS550 was far from the most exciting or original superbike of the '70s, but in its own quiet way it was a genuine star. as: ‘You'll reach limits of your own courage and riding ability long before the GS misbehaves'.
Standards of handling are very different now, yet the Suzuki's blend of 19-inch front wheel, conservative (by modern standards) steering geometry, and fairly long-travel suspension still resulted in a bike that was stable and reasonably manoeuvrable. Even when the going got a bit hectic, the GS behaved itself well, flicking through traffic with a fair degree of nimbleness.
In corners it held the road safely despite the narrowness of its Avon Roadrunner tyres, though riders of the day would have been very wary of the original-fitment Dunlops in wet weather. Same goes for the brakes, which also performed poorly in the rain. But on dry roads, the triple-disc set-up — impressive for a mere middleweight back then — worked fairly well provided the handlebar lever was given a firm squeeze.