Cycle World Roundup
CYCLE WORLD ROUNDUP
DAVID EDWARDS
The Cologne Show: Eurobikes for' 85
If the motorcycles on display at the Cologne Show were any indication, the American rider’s version of that old saw
about the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence—you know, that the Europeans always get the good bikes—may be on the verge of extinction.
The Cologne Show, known officially as the International Bicycle and Motorcycle Exhibition, is held every other year at the Köln Messe, West Germany’s most popular convention center, just across
the Rhine River from Cologne’s other famous landmark, its 700-year-old, twin-spired cathedral. As the first major show of the 1985 model year, it’s a chance to get a glimpse of what the Europeans will be buying next year. And unlike previous years, those motorcycles aren’t too much different from what we in the U.S. will be offered.
Take the stars of the show, for example. Yamaha’s FZ750, Kawasaki’s GPz600R and Suzuki’s GSX-R750 did equally well at catching the crowd’s attention; but American riders will have a chance to saddle-up the FZ and GPz (known as the Ninja 600R in the U.S.) in 1985, while the GSX-R will likely arrive on these shores in 1986, perhaps sooner.
Still, the U.S. and European lineups aren’t mirrorimages of each other just yet. There are some tasty twostroke streetbikes that won’t touch rubber to American asphalt in 1985, namely, the Honda NS400R V-Three, complete with side numberplates and HRC Racing decals; Yamaha’s RD500, last year’s show-circuit darling; and two RG Gammas from Suzuki—the two-yearold 250 Twin and an all-new 500 square-Four based on the race team’s grand prix bike.
And if you’re a fan of dualpurpose bikes, the American menu seems like slim pickings compared with what the Europeans have to feast on. The selection ran from 80cc and 125cc tiddlers with huge Paris-Dakar fuel tanks, to 650cc and 750cc V-Twin models from Honda, Moto Guzzi and Cagiva.
Despite the greater number of two-stroke sportbikes and dual-purpose bikes, though, a quick check of the Big Four’s Euro offerings shows just how similiar they are to the U.S. lineups. Almost every motorcycle that Kawasaki is selling in Europe is available here, and we get two that they don’t—the Vulcan cruiser and the king-size Voyager tourer. Ditto for Yamaha:
Just about everything also is for sale here or—as with the 550, 650, 900 and Turbo Secas, as well as the 550 Vision, the 650 Twin and the SR500 Single—was at one time available in the States but didn’t sell well enough to warrant their continued U.S. presence. About the only thing that Honda has for Eu-> rope that American riders can’t get (besides the NS400R) is a neat, electricstart 500 Single streetbike, the XBR. Suzuki’s European lineup contains a few bikes that previously were offered in the U.S. market but proved unpopular, or two-strokes that would be impractical to modify for EPA approval.
And so the only U.S.-rational model that we can’t buy is the GSX-R750, and it should be available over here in late 1985 or early 1986.
The similarities between U.S. and Euro bikes goes both ways as well. All the Japanese manufacturers are now selling cruiser-styled motorcycles in Europe, bikes that previously had been marked “for U.S. consumption only.” And if the reaction from the German audience to the cruisers is any indication, there will be more than a few chopperesque bikes jockeying with sportbikes for space on the autobahns in 1985. Besides the cruisers, big-rig touring bikes are gaining acceptance in Europe, as evidenced by the fact that both Yamaha and Honda are selling their originally-developed-for-America Ventures and Gold Wings over there.
What this amounts to is a kind of two-wheeled detente between Europe and the U.S. With the continuing emergence of the sportbike in America, and the Europeans’ acceptance of cruisers and U.S.-style touring bikes, the age of bikes for Us and bikes for Them could be closing.
In the future, then, there might not be American models and European models; perhaps there will only be World models.
