Surely thats much older than the 30 year deadline. Possibly the most important bike ever made......no pizza otherwise
I think the latest Norton with the Wankel engine will be looked back at as a bike that made a difference. Its a great shame that enthusiasts have taken over the Norton brand and not businessmen. Norton needed to take a leaf out of Mr J Bloor's book and do what he did with Triumph. In fact now there is a bike thats made a difference the 675 and now even being emulated by MV.
Surely not! Thats an example of what happens when you let Stevie Wonder loose with a pack of Crayola ;-)
nah.... by that reckoning you should have said the Pantah, because without that you wouldnt have had the 851... the 916 built on the former but rewrote the book and is a bike that everyone and hos dog knows about with anything more than just a passing interest in bikes...it also saved ducatis arse and is the most influential superbike of them all, period.
the others followed in the 916's wake, and were part of the 916 'series'...ditto the 888 following on from the 851. the 851 and 916 were the originals, but no bike has caused the same splash, inspired so many imitators or influenced motorcycle design as much as the 916.. the only other bike which is truly a global icon is the Honda C50/90...bringing cheap reliable transport to the world, and can be found in the baking heat of the middle east or the frozen wastes of siberia..but its still there transporting 13 indians, the dog, and a sideboard down the street and running on cooking oil.
from visordown.com 'The 916 will go down in history as a timeless classic with amazing looks that have been copied but never equalled. The MV Augusta comes close, but pity the poor designer who eventually has to come up with a completely new Ducati model. Now we have the Ducati 1098, but is it five years too late?' Read more: Ducati 916: Perfect form, perfect function - Reader Articles - Visordown
Circa 30 odd years....... GPz900 blew everyone away - slim across the line four, handling from mono shock (Unitrak) rear end. Won production TT. GSXr 750 or 1100 - the original oil cooled with up and over frame and spindly wheels. So light. Everything flexed. Colin Chapman approach to engineering. RC30 for the exotic gear driven cams and v4 loveliness. After Honda had gone V everything - remember the VTR twins and horrible VF750 custom thingy with soft cams - brave to persevere and get it so right. ZXR750H1 for being cheap and proper endurance race styling. Even if the hoover pipes didn't do anything, suddenly everyone was interested in airbox inlets TDM750 Yamaha. Way ahead of its day. Class of one back then. Upright style, lower power, comfy. Honda Africa Twin/ Honda Dominator I think rank alongside RGS BMW for bring enduro benefits to the street and commute. Sports - FireBlade original. Odd engine size, light weight (remember the holes in the fairing). Blitzed the big old CBR bus and by then saggy water cooled GSXRs. Followed by the first R1. Five valves per cylinder and EXUP. For us? Well 916 is iconic for style - high level exhaust, mono rear end, priddy...... 999 (ahem) with CanBus electronics and adjustable (on S I can cock up the handling beautifully with headstock adjustment as well as the full Ohlins tweaking, plus of course seat fore and aft, foot pegs and levers) Monster I believe defined a class - stylish commuter naked or some such In terms of real engineering, dont think any bike went further than the Britten in one single machine....the list is endless. Now is it any one bike or components - Sachs are revolutionising real time suspension adjsutment, but it is popping up across lots of different machines.
The original Monster has to go down as a true classic - the bike that invented an entire genre, saved Ducati from the brink of collapse, and went on to be their biggest selling model ever ( and looked so damn cool in the process )... Have their been any real "game-changers" in the last 30 years ? Any bikes that really made a quantum leap forward ? Or has it all be moving the game along in stages - some slightly larger than others ? When you look at the effect that the GPZ900R had on the world, or the massive leap forward that the original CB750 brought, it's hard to think of anything that has had that sort of effect in the last three decades... That doesn't mean there haven't been any bikes that won't be looked back on as icons though - the Fireblade and the R1 must both surely be considered to be iconic. As must the 916 / 748. The BMW GS series would probably be in with a shout too. But when "the youth of today" look back at the early years of the 21st century, what will their RD350, GSXR750, GPZ900R be ?
BMW HP4 - From what I've read, it's semi-active suspension is a true revelation, and a genuine (future) benefit to all motorcycle users. Of course the Multistrada has Skyhook, but that bike's too damn ugly to be an icon...
What will the youth of today look back at in 30 years? I'd guess at not a lot from the last 5 years. I can't be alone is remembering the bikes that were absolute brutes to ride more than the ones that were soft mannered easy to ride things which is why the H1 & H2 Kawasakis are the ones I wish I had from when I started out on bikes and every if not all 'iconic' bike had that something about it that made people gasp a little bit. It didn't always have to be the most stylish but nobody forgets riding something that had the had the capacity to spit them out in little pieces which is why everyone who rode one of the original Suzuki TL1000S was a little bit in awe of it. Probably the last bike that had a reputation for being a bit of a handful was the C1 ZX10R but these days the manufacturers won't give us bikes that scare us so we have to just live with the memories :frown:
RC30 RC45 851sps/888sps/916sp ZXR750RR OWO1 750 GSXR750rsp All generated sportsbikes which most riders could never ride them to the ability they were designed for..... The rest is history.........
Honda NR 750 Without which we would not have had the 916. It is rumoured the under seat exhaust for the 916 was copied from the Honda Then again that might all be fibs
