A guide to buying the Ram Air.
Once a common sight, early Suzuki GT250S are rare birds now, says Steve Cooper.
When it came to visual impact, little – in 1973 – could top Suzuki’s GT250K. This new learner machine was unequivocally ‘big, bold and brassy’ – two years earlier, The Goodies (a comedy threesome of some repute) had used the same words in their song Black Pudding Bertha. The company’s stylists had majored on dramatic visual impact while the engineering team took time out to work on other projects. The GT250 was essentially a heavily reworked T250 Hustler and in the crucial American market the new GT would still carry the Hustler name over from the outgoing T250. Truth be told, Suzuki was ploughing most of its efforts into the RE5 Wankel while hedging its bets on a four-stroke twin and four. There was precious little resource left for the stroker twins so it was a case of giving it a major cosmetic makeover and hoping for the best. And against the odds it actually worked out rather well. The initial series of GT250S would run unfettered for some four years without significant changes, pretty much validating the company’s policy of minimal interference. Other than aesthetic changes the big differences between the outgoing T250 and the new GT250 were the addition of a disc brake along with the fitment of an auxiliary cooling cowl to the cylinder head and both split opinions. The new front disc
brake was perhaps a little more effective than the T250’s disc in the dry but significantly worse in the rain. Suzuki was painfully aware of this and, against custom and practice, even added a vinyl warning decal to the fork leg advising of the reduced performance in the rain. To this day the use of the famous Ram Air cylinder head cowling remains contentious even if the logic was flawless: a lot of a stroker’s power is made or lost in the cylinder head and overheating at any level can compromise performance. Knowing this, Suzuki’s engineers devised a cast metal alloy funnelling system that both collected and concentrated the air flow over the cylinder heads. Additional air meant additional cooling potential which in turn meant extra performance – in theory. Truth be told the advantages were more likely theoretical than actual with any measureable effects only occurring at seriously illegal speeds and even then only at an incremental level. And yet the so-called Ram Air systems helped sell GT250S by the boat load; it was more than enough to convince the bike buying public that the engine was an all-new design even when it wasn’t. With some cast alloy artifice, new bold styling and a lot of smoke and mirrors Suzuki had a fresh looking machine from minimal effort. So good was the job that the GT250 would go on to become the top-selling learner machine of the mod 1970s and it’s not hard to see why. Playing heavily to brand loyalty along with existing customers’ aspirations the K, L and M-models subtly mimicked the overall aesthetic looks of the larger machines in the family. Even though most 17-yearolds couldn’t afford a GT550 or a Kettle they could bask in the reflected glory of the larger capacity offerings. Dealers often struggled to obtain stock fast enough with demand regularly outstripping supply. Against its peers the GT250 actually stood up rather well. It always felt like a big bike and it also seemed to make a lot of noise when compared to the equivalent Yamaha RD250. Up against a Honda CB250K4 or later G5 the GT250 was a rocket ship. Performance-wise there was little between any of the two-stroke offerings even if Kawasaki S1 owners claimed top bragging rights thanks to a significantly tweaked 1972 S1 that supposedly had cracked the magic ton. So why might you be considering a Suzuki GT250 today? Just like other 250cc learners of the period (S1 possibly excepted) there hasn’t been a lot of interest in the early 70s 250s. Coffin tanked Yamahas, Suzuki X7s and even Honda Superdreams all seem to be much more commercially desirable. Well… the early GT250S have a singularly unique look, feel like a much larger machine, have a brash boisterous charm to them and, best of all, are still relatively inexpensive. And, in an ever-rising market, that last fact can be a serious decision maker. If the key parts are all present and correct then even a project GT250 is viable simply because there’s still a lot of stuff out there for them and, generally, it’s not silly money either. They go well, make all the right sounds (quite loudly) and are arguably greater than the sum of their parts. On that basis how many more reasons do you need to own one? cmm