XR69 rep for the road

[ ROAD REPLICA ] Crosby, Grant or Dunlop? Live out your racer fantasy on this epic Suzuki...

For fans of massive engines crammed into small, sweethandling frames, the Suzuki GS1000R (aka XR69) racer has to be near the top of the shopping list. The problem is cost: there are thought to be just three original race bikes left and you’ll need at least £100,000 to buy one. The answer? A quality replica like this. It was built by the maestros at Trident Engineering, who made Michael Dunlop’s Classic Tt-winning XR69 replica, and is fully road legal thanks to neatly built-in lights/indicators and number plate. As with the original XRS, the bike’s centrepiece is the engine. This is a fully rebuilt GS1100 motor with Yoshimura race cams and springs, a gas flowed cylinder head, Keihin round-slide carbs and a close-ratio five speed gearbox. It’s good for 130bhp.

The Yoshimura link is key to the XR’S history. Legend has it that American tuner Pops Yoshimura provoked its creation when, in 1977, he complained to Suzuki that the GS1000’S frame was being twisted by the 130bhp he’d extracted from the air-cooled motor. Suzuki nodded and handed over a stack of chassis bits from their fearsome RG500 GP bike and told him to build a machine to beat the pesky Honda superbikes. Which he did. In the hands of Graeme Crosby, Wes Cooley and Mick Grant the XR69 clobbered every other road-based superbike, winning the Suzuka 8-hour, three TTS, Daytona 200 and North West 200 among others. This bike is a replica of the 1980 XR69 F1 version (hence the foxy Heron colours and monoshock, rather than the twin shocks of the early bikes) which was mostly ridden by Roger Marshall, Granty and a Mr J Dunlop. The quality of the build is predictably stratospheric, with a frame made from T45 stainless steel coated in black chrome with a hand-fabricated alloy swingarm. The fork yokes are hand machined, plus it features cast PFM wheels and gloriously period AP racing brake calipers.

It’s for sale at The Bike Specialists for £29,980.

‘Suzuki handed over bits from their RG500 GP bike’

RIDERS Randy Mamola famously didn’t like the XR69, calling it ‘the diesel’, but Mick Grant and Graeme Crosby have said it’s one of their all-time favourite race bikes. In fact, Granty still has the XR69 he raced. ENGINE Original XR69S had GS1000 engines – 997cc, air-cooled, eight valves – that were vigorously tuned to take them from 88bhp to 130bhp. This replica uses the slightly later 16-valve GS1100 motor. FRAME Original GS1000 frames wobbled when road riding so were befuddled by racing. Pops Yoshimura used chassis parts from Suzuki’s grand prix program to beef it up. The replica has a T45 stainless steel tube frame.

130bhp: fully rebuilt GS1100 motor

Street legal: lights and numberplates