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AUSTRALIAN ROAD RIDER | 115

TURBOS AND SUPERCHARGERS

time and Japan’s ability to produce

reliable, cost-eff ective, high-performance

motorcycles was making the rest of the

world bleed. Harley was doing it as tough

as the Europeans were, particularly

because the Japanese brands were being

heavily discounted in the USA. It took

government intervention in the form of

import tariff s on Japanese motorcycles

over 700cc to try to save Harley sales.

One way for the Japanese to beat this

tariff and produce a motorcycle with

the sort of power of a big bike was by

running a turbo. The Honda CX500/650,

Suzuki XN85 and Yamaha XJ650T all did

this successfully, while Kawasaki shipped

the parts and assembled in the USA to

enter the market with the GPz750 Turbo.

The Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha were

all around 650cc in their fi nal form.

Honda had bragging rights with the

100hp/75kW CX650, while the Suzuki

and Yamaha put out around 63kW.

The GPz750 was the most powerful,

pu ing out 84kW, but it had a capacity

advantage.

However these turbos weren’t popular.

They promised middleweight-like

handling and big bike power at a good

price, but the models were heavy, power

characteristics weren’t good and the

turbo systems complex. To make ma ers

worse, the global motorcycle market took

a big hit sales-wise and manufacturers

tightened up their model line-ups. The

turbo fantasy had all too quickly come to

an end.

Since then, rumours swelled every now

and then about turbo or supercharged

motorcycles making it into production

from the big manufacturers. Suzuki’s

B-King concept was supercharged and

really got tongues wagging. Sadly, it

wasn’t to be — until 2015 anyway.

There have been many supercharged

superbikes over the years, namely the

Aussie-built Vee Two Super Squalo, Roehr

V-twin superbikes and Bimota DB11VLX.

The Horex VR6 was a supercharged

motorcycle in development for many

years and only died a death with the

company in 2014.

Suzuki has enticed us with

turbocharging on its 588cc, twin-cylinder:

75kW, 100Nm, 174kg Recursion concept.

Yamaha has had turbo diesel patents

lodged fi ve years ago while the Track

T800 Turbo diesel motorcycle with CVT

pumps out a mild 30kW and whopping

100Nm of torque.

But these one-off s, concepts, exotic

and expensive charged motorcycles

aren’t the future. Charging is

moving away from being solely

in the pursuit of power and is

now being widely considered

and developed as not only

a means of using smaller ►

■ Ben Bickell's 1933

supercharged Ariel Square

4 lapped Brooklands at

176km/h. Oh, and there’s no

front brake...

r The BMW “Kompressor” Georg Meier raced to victory in the 1939 Senior TT and Michael Dunlop’s Superbike and Senior TT winning machine 75 years later

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