25 Years Ago September 1985
25 YEARS AGO SEPTEMBER 1985
The all-new second-generation Honda VFR750F shared the cover with a sporty little number that looked like it might actually be attainable for a relatively well-off Midwestbased college kid living on the largesse of the Gl Bill: the new Yamaha FZ600.
(In ’86, fully faired crotch rockets were so new that there really weren’t any trashed ones to be picked up on the cheap yet.) Sadly, glowing road tests led to a premium price tag for the new FZ above and beyond its $3199 MSRP, and the college kid kept riding the mongrel ’82 Suzuki GS550M instead.
• In those pre-Internet days, Feb ruary was about the time news of all the latest models showed mm up in your SUPIRSTARS: rwo 86 mailbox, and ’86 was a vintage year. Matter of fact, 1986 may have been the year that the sportbike wars really began to heat up—lots of credit for which Editor Paul Dean theorized belonged to the success of the Kawasaki GPz models of ’81 and ’82.
• Page 47, boom, there it was— the all-new GSX-R1100: 130 claimed horsepower, 471 pounds wet, $4999, uncomfortA ^ Q> . able. “When JII you ask for * ' V something,” k we concludVV ed, “you had -better be sure it’s what you really want. Because you just might get it.” The big GSX-R went on to sell pretty well, anyway. • In other news: the new $1999 Suzuki Savage, the new Kawasaki Concours, the new H-D FXRD. And the thing we appreciate most of all these 25 years later: the Aerostich Roadcrafter riding suit.
John Burns
