A brief history of the ‘super-sport’ class in the UK
The ‘modern classic’ era of the super-sport class dawned with the arrival of Kawasaki’s GPZ600R back in 1985. From then on, the capacity segment was a succession of new models, most notably with the arrival of the Yamaha FZ600 in 1986 and Honda’s CBR600F in 1987. As the 1980s rolled into the 1990s, in the UK at least, the sports-bike was king and the super-sports 600 class was very popular both out on track and in the showrooms. On the road, the sports 600 was often the first ‘big’ bike that riders owned post-test.
On the track the Honda CBR600 one-make series was very popular and the Supersport 600 class was also a big thing, seeing Yamaha and Honda battle it out for supremacy.
By the mid-1990s new models came every couple of years. The Honda CBR600F was king, offering a realworld alternative to the Yamaha FZR600S, which were at the sporty end of the market. 1991’s CBR600F-M is still regarded as a real classic and this was updated with ram-air for 1995’s F-S model. 1999 finally saw an ally beam-framed F-X model and 2003 saw the launch of the uber-sporty CBR600RR. Interestingly, the easy-going CBR600F did make a comeback between 20112014. Kawasaki’s ZX-6R never replaced the old speed demon ZZ-R600 initially – they were sold side-by-side for a while. Where the ZZ-R was fast but soft (it still took the 1990 Supersport 600 series with John Reynolds), the 1995 ZX-6R F1 Ninja was a real powerhouse and sportier than its rivals. That all changed with the 1999 R6 which was even more sports-focussed. Suzuki had a GSX-R600 in the USA in the early 1990s, but it was a sleeved-down 750. In the UK the oil-/ air-cooled GSX600F, known to many as the ‘Teapot’, was our Suzuki super-sport – until the 1997 GSX-R600. This was almost identical to the 750 WT/SRAD but you could spot the difference as it had right-way-up forks. On UK tracks Yamaha were the choice in the Supersport category, winning the 1989 and 1991 titles with Paul Brookes and Ian Simpson, but then Honda dominated. Tuners like V&M were able to take the humble CBR and turn it into a real track weapon. Honda took the title every year from 1992 (Phil Borley) through to 1997 (Paul ‘Marra’ Brown), before Suzuki’s GSX-R won the last two titles of the 1990s with John Crawford. By the 2010s, sports-bikes were going out of fashion and some sports 600s were deleted from the manufacturers’ ranges and sold only as track machines, such as the latest Yamaha YZF-R6. Today, the supersport class seems to be having something of a renaissance thanks to the 2024 launch of a new CBR600RR.