BEST BIKES OF 1983
John Nutting on what was hot in the year of Thriller!
The fastest road bikes were nudging top speeds of 150mph for the first time in 1983, but they’d also become fearsomely unwieldy. No wonder then that a new wave of more agile 750cc machines made their debut, and so too did a 350cc two-stroke twin that offered a means of getting your kicks without breaking the bank. It was a year of significant technology changes in all fields. Motorola launched its mobile phones in the US; Microsoft released its word processing program (a few months before the first Apple Macintosh computer), compact discs went on sale in the UK and US President Ronald Reagan touted his Strategic Defence Initiative, dubbed ‘Star Wars’. Music was dominated in the UK by the New Romantics such as Culture Club whose Karma Chameleon topped the singles charts, while Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean (from the Thriller album) spent a lot of time at the top as well during the hot July and August. If you saw a movie, it was likely to be Return of the Jedi. You’d probably pay for the tickets with the newly-minted British one pound coins, and if you drove a car, you’d have to use the seat belts by law for the first time. Things were changing in motorcycle sport too. Freddie Spencer won his first 500cc Grand Prix world title on a Honda two-stroke triple, just pipping Yamaha V4-mounted Kenny Roberts, who later in the year announced that he’d be packing up racing. At the Isle of Man TT, Rob Mcelnea won the six-lap
Classic Senior TT race on a 1000cc Suzuki, after leader Norman Brown ran out of fuel, while Joey Dunlop won his first of six Formula 1 TT races on the trot and Tony Rutter won his third TT F2 race for Ducati. In the US, the AMA had anticipated that Superbike racers were getting too hot to handle, so for 1983 cut the capacity limit from 1000cc to 750cc. The previous year, up-and-coming Wayne Rainey had been contracted to race for Kawasaki. “I went from fooling around in club racing to becoming Eddie Lawson’s team-mate on the 1025cc Kawasaki,” Rainey recalls. “That thing was a monster!” Finishing third in the series to Lawson and Mike Baldwin, Rainey was named Rookie of the Year. In 1983, when engines were limited to 750cc, future world champion Rainey hit his first success streak after Lawson switched to racing a 500cc works Yamaha. Riding a Rob Muzzy-prepared GPZ750, Rainey won five of seven races, beating Baldwin to become AMA Superbike Champion. Baldwin had been racing a factory-prepared example of Honda’s 750cc V4, and but for a spectacular crash at the final round of the AMA series was certain to win the AMA title. The VF750F, new for 1983, made its UK debut at the NEC show in March along with a whole range of fresh designs for that year from Honda. It was as different from the previous year’s VF750S as it could be. Aping Honda’s works superbikes, the engine was tipped forward in a tight perimeter frame with squaresection steel tubing. Chain drive replaced the shaft and wheels were fashionably 16in front and 18in rear. The bike was slim and disarmingly flexible and potent. Power was upped to 90bhp at 10,000rpm but for all its technology weight was still in the ballpark at 245kg ready to ride. Tested at MIRA in the following June against the Kawasaki GPZ750 and Suzuki GS750ES, the Honda blew them away with a mean top speed of 132.6mph, almost 5mph up. Acceleration too was a best ever for the class, with a mean standing quarter of 12.09s with a terminal speed of 110mph, compared with 12.18s at 107.7mph for the Suzuki and 12.38s and 107.6mph for the Kawasaki.
The Honda won hands down in all categories, and that was against a Suzuki and Kawasaki that were both vastly improved on their forebears. Honda was also mixing it in the 400cc category with its smaller V4, the VF400F, which had appeared in Japan a year earlier. This time it was up against stiff opposition in the form of Yamaha’s RD350LC YPVS, completely revised with a better chassis and a 59bhp power-valve twin-cylinder 350cc engine. Following rave reviews from the Yamaha’s spring launch in Japan, where it was unveiled alongside the new and sporty but shaftdrive XJ900 four, an all-round upgrade on the XJ750, how would the Yamaha stack up when the chips were down? At MIRA it was whitewash. Great bike though the VF400F was and still is, smooth and refined with scalpel-like handling, its 116mph top speed was easily topped by the Yamaha at 119mph. Being so relatively light (143kg against the Honda’s 175kg) the Yamaha was quicker through the quarter mile by half a second. Furthermore, the Yamaha’s visceral nature better appealed to the youngsters of the day than the gentlemanly Honda. Better still, at dealers the Yamaha was being discounted at £1499, while the Honda cost £200 more. So confident was Yamaha with the YPVS that it launched the machine in America, where the original RD350LC hadn’t been sold, but fitted with exhaust emission plumbing to meet regulations in California. If you were on a budget, Kawasaki offered its OHC 444cc parallel twins, the Z440 and Z440 LTD with belt drive for £1199, while Yamaha launched a redesigned XS400 twin with its dohc engine mounted in a stylish spine framed chassis for £1399 RRP. In the lightweight category, Honda offered for the first time in the UK a 35bhp 250cc V-twin, the VT250F. But it was in this case trumped by Suzuki with its new RG250 Gamma, a liquid-cooled parallel twin with a state-of-the-art chassis featuring an aluminium-alloy duplex frame. With a top speed of 113mph and terrier-like handling, the Suzuki
gave no chance to the Honda. But 250cc was a class in limbo in the UK, what with the previous year’s introduction of a 125cc limit for learner riders. Kawasaki took the opportunity to inject new life into its Z250 OHC twin, relaunching it as the sportier GPZ305 which with a fairing and 36bhp reached 100mph at MIRA. A novel feature was its toothed-belt final drive. For less frantic riding, Honda offered two new options in 1983. Newly unveiled for Europe and the UK was the VT500E which, like the CX500 that it replaced, was a V-twin with shaft drive but with the cylinders in line with the frame, rather than across. The change was because it shared the engine with a sibling in the US market called the Ascot 500, a short-track styled machine that supposedly appealed to the aspirational Harley wannabes. A novel feature of the 52° layout of the engine was the twin-throw crankshaft with crankpins offset at 72° to give a smooth power delivery more like a Ducati, while the cylinder heads each had three valves opened by overhead camshafts. In the UK, the VT500E didn’t set the market alight, but its dogged reliability appealed to despatch riders. It was so bulletproof that the engine spawned a range of 650cc trailies – topped by the gorgeous 750 Africa Twin – and sports bikes such as the Us-only 650 Hawk GT and Bros in Japan – followed by the 700cc Deauville tourers that continue to be popular. Honda’s other tourer was a bit more sporting. The 673cc V-twin CX650 Turbo for 1983 was a bigger version of the CX500 Turbo, and this time Honda hit the target, almost. With much more power on tap – 100bhp – the aerodynamic 650 could reach almost 130mph and zip through MIRA’S standing quarter mile in 12.08 seconds. But also that year, Kawasaki’s turbocharged GPZ750T finally made its debut with a launch in Austria, the factory hedging its bets by still not actually saying when the bike would be sold. If that was intended to whet the appetite of the hungry journalists, it was unnecessary. Using Kawasaki’s 738cc air-cooled DOHC four-cylinder engine with softened camshaft timing and lift, a lower compression ratio and beefed up lubrication, air was
drawn by the Hitachi turbocharger in front of the crankcases through plumbing from the air filter next to the gearbox, then pumped to the plenum chamber and fuel injectors at up to 10.5psi. Peak power was thereby lifted from 86bhp to 112bhp while peak torque was up 55% to 74lb-ft, and at lower revs. Describing the performance as intoxicating and the lack of lag remarkable, correspondent for Which Bike? Mark Williams was almost apologetic in his euphoria for the Kawasaki Turbo, because he was unable to assess its fuel consumption or reliability, yet few cared about that. And that was without taking it to its limits at the Salzburgring in Austria. As it turns out, the GPZ750T was the best of all the turbocharged production bikes, with a top whack of 147mph and a quarter mile time of 11 seconds when tested in the US. As you’d expect, the Kawasaki Turbo was heavier than the GPZ750 it was derived from, yet not as heavy as the GPZ1100, but almost as fast. In 1983, Kawasaki’s air-cooled 1089cc Uni-trak superbike was the most potent bike in its range, long and sleek but with a weight of 267kg tanked up it was a beast to handle anywhere but the open road. Indeed, I even found that MIRA’S timing strip was too cramped for the flying Gpz1100’s claimed 120bhp peak power. Even when I was sitting normally it could reach 140mph, but tucked I found it was still accelerating before having to pull up to avoid diving into the sand traps. So I took the Kawasaki to MIRA’S mile-long parallel straights whose connecting loops enabled an entry speed of 70mph. Revving up to 158mph on the clock, it peaked at 9600rpm one way and 9950rpm the other, the equivalent of a two-way average of 149mph, some 14mph faster than when I’d tested the bikini-faired 1982 version. A measure of how quick this was at the time was illustrated by the performance of the Suzuki GSX1100ES tested a week later. Another heavy beast, weighing 261kg tanked up, it clocked a relatively modest 136.4mph. Some will say such speeds were irrelevant in the real world just as the even more elevated potential of today’s bikes is. But the Suzuki and its more flexible engines turned out to be easier to ride fast on Britain’s roads.
Although Honda was concentrating on its V4 sport bikes, it had been producing the gorgeous CB1100R limited-edition production racer on which Ron Haslam had been so successful that year. In 1983, this bike spawned the CB1100F, a bigger version of the CB900F and a sublime mix of fluid power – peak was at 110bhp – and easy handling, despite a tanked up weight of 269kg. Not officially sold in the UK, some dealers brought them from Europe, and the one I tested at MIRA easily topped the Suzuki with a two-way mean top speed of 138.5mph and quarter mile times in the 11.5s bracket. Suzuki had also been developing a turbocharged roadster for a number of years, but waited until the summer of 1983 to make it available to the press in time for the Isle of Man TT in June. Although the XN85, based on the 673cc air-cooled DOHC four, featured a number of innovations such as a ‘race-proven’ 16in front wheel and single-shock rear suspension with a rising rate, and fine handling, it had been upstaged by the latest 750cc superbikes. With peak power of just 85bhp and a top speed at MIRA of 127mph, performance was unremarkable. In the off-road and trail-bike world, there were plenty of new machines on offer in 1983. Yamaha, which had revealed a new range of two-stroke YZ moto-crossers with upgraded suspension, further developed the four-valve 550cc single as the XT600Z Tenere, sporting full Paris-dakar styling with a huge fuel tank and bigger 595cc engine. Likewise, Honda upgraded its XL series with the XL600R featuring the now-familiar radial valve OHC engine. The surprise was the launch of the XLV750R, a big trail bike with a Harley-style 45° air-cooled V-twin engine and, shaft drive: a real desert-sled, but one that didn’t last long. Suzuki also launched its biggest ever single, the DR500. New models launched in Japan that indicated what might be on the way to the UK included Honda’s single-cylinder CBX250RS with a twin-cam head (and a GB250 clubman version); and the naked four-cylinder Honda CBR400F. From Suzuki was the four-cylinder GS250FW with a liquid-cooled engine. While the Japanese manufacturers had been slugging it out for sales supremacy, those in Italy had been relatively quiet in advance of the 1983 model year launches. Moto Guzzi was plugging along with its shaft-drive V-twins, but Ducati was struggling and the bevel-drive 900cc V-twins led by the Mike Hailwood Replica were looking jaded. No wonder then that the emerging Cagiva factory acquired the Bologna factory and started rebranding its range, which was revealed at the Milan Show in November. Cagiva also launched a trail bike called the Elephant powered by a 750cc Ducati V-twin. The smaller Laverda factory in Italy continued to serve its loyal following, the latest machine being the RGS1000 with a revised chassis and swoopy streamlined bodywork. The engine was the rubbermounted 85bhp version of the 120° 981cc threecylinder Jota which offered breathlessly relaxed cruising. Also listed was the bikini-faired RGA1000,
but still at an eye-watering price of nearly £4000. In Germany though there was change afoot with BMW developing a completely new range of inline shaft-drive four-cylinder cruisers to replace the air-cooled boxer twins. A last hurrah for the twins, as we thought then, was the road version of the R80GS dirt bike. Launched in Sicily, the R80ST was light, nimble and flexible, and completely at odds with the German factory’s staid image. Confirmation that there was a revolution at BMW came with the launch later in the year of the K100 series in the south of France. Later dubbed the ‘brick’, the first RS model was a luxury tourer capable of 133mph and ton-plus cruising. With the engine laid flat in the chassis with the cylinder to the right and the crankcase on the left, it displayed a Teutonic logic that took the BMW concept to new levels, and would serve the factory’s needs for year to come. By now, the British motorcycle industry was on its last legs. Triumph finally gave up manufacturing bikes at Meriden early in the year with debts of almost £3.8 million, but in November rumours emerged that Staffordshire builder John Bloor was planning to buy the rights to the Triumph brand and patents for £120,000. An auction held on November 29 at the Meriden factory to sell assets including the site raised £1.25 million. Motorcycle stocks and spares were sold to Andover Norton. Hesketh, which in 1982 had stopped production of the V1000 V-twin at its Daventry factory following criticism of the machine’s performance, had been revived under the creation of a curtailed operation based at the Lord’s country retreat of Easton Neston where Mick Broom incorporated a number of engineering updates into a fully-faired touring version of the machine called the Vampire. But it was a limited operation with only a few dozen machines produced over the years. If the new bikes for 1983 had been momentous and numerous, those in store for the next year would be even more startling. Shown at Milan were the new top of the line Suzuki, the 1135cc GSX1100EF with 125bhp, Honda’s bigger V4 roadsters, the 998cc VF1000F and VF1000R, and the long-awaited 1200cc Gold Wing tourer. Yamaha’s FJ1100 four with a low perimeter frame was anticipated too, while from Kawasaki there was the fuel-injected version of the Z1300 six and the GPZ900R, the first liquid-cooled in-line 16-valve dohc four. Star of the show was however from tiny Italian specialist Bimota – the futuristic Tesi 83, a sports bike with hub-centre steering using hydraulics and powered by Honda V4 engine. We’d already been spoilt for choice over the previous year. For me the highlights of 1983 were Yamaha’s RD350LC, Kawasaki’s GPZ750 Turbo and Honda’s VF750F.