Win on Sunday, sell on Monday. This has been the sales strategy of car and motorcycle manufacturers since motorsport became a sport.
Suzuki was the first sportbike manufacturer to successfully bring this strategy to the mass market. In 1985, they put some lights on their race winning 750cc SBK bike of the time and offered it to the public; the Gixxer was born. Over the years it has morphed into several different sizes and classes, it has truly become a brand within a brand with many loyal fans around the world. In 2020, Suzuki returned to the winners circle, winning the MotoGP world championship for the first time in their history, and once again they have made the most of this by giving the buying public an extensive range of sport bikes wearing the Ecstar team colors.
10 From Beginner Friendly To Almost Deadly
Although most of us will associate the GSX-R nameplate with pure performance machines, it technically started out as a beginner-friendly sportbike in Japan as the GSX-R 400.
Focus quickly shifted to the 750 though, it had race pedigree and Suzuki put barely any effort into taking their race spec bike back to the street. They sold rather well and laid the foundation for the dynasty.
9 Gixxer Means Fast
Well, it did for a period. The name always had strong ties to the race team, and that seemingly innocuous moniker meant a lot.
Suzuki wasted little time in expanding the GSX-R lineup, with the 1100 already there the next step was the 600. Models came and went, but today you can get a Gixxer in just about any displacement, from 150 to 1000cc
8 Track Bikes For The Street
After the hugely successful, but semi-deadly Gixxer 750 of the late 80s, Suzuki had to keep up with the times and updated their machine accordingly in the early 90s.
However, even with their updates, Honda breezed past them with their first 900cc Fireblade, and they had to come up with an answer.
7 SRAD Revolutionizes The Intake
By the mid-90s, the SRAD came in and brought back all the fans, it completely revolutionized the way all Japanese manufacturers would design their intake system.
Their ram-air intake added enough horsepower to leap-frog Honda for a time, but by the late 90s, Honda was the least of their concerns.
6 Middleweight 600
For years the 600 class had served as something of an introduction to the sportbike class, and Suzuki had pretty much abandoned it.
The other manufacturers had taken advantage of this as the appetite for performance-oriented middleweights grew, Suzuki needed their 600 back. They came up with an all-new 600 equipped with the SRAD system that had been pioneered by their 750 and the performance was more than enough to take on the competition head on.
5 The Busa
With the Yamaha R1 now stealing away sales from their 750 class bike, they knew they needed a literbike, but decided to first bring a gun to a knife fight.
Instead of bringing out their liter bike right away, they distracted everyone by launching the GSX-R1300, aka the Hayabusa. It made more power than any other production motorcycle and was faster than any production motorcycle.
4 Legend Of The K5
Although Suzuki were a little late to the literbike class, they were steady for the first few years of production, but a radical redesign changed all that.
In 2005, the Gixxer got a new engine and frame, which saved weight, increased power, torsional rigidity and overall performance. It was at the time peerless, even today, the K5 is competitive against more powerful modern bikes.
3 35 Years Of The 750
With other manufacturers all dropping their middleweight inline-4 sportbikes, Suzuki is one of the few to persevere with theirs.
Last year marked the 750s 35th year on the market, and 10th year in its current guise. It is still a very solid bike, with proven performance on and off the track.
2 Accessible Performance
Suzuki have made a name for themself over the years by offering more performance for less. It is something they have taken a lot of pride in doing.
Today their new prices remain competitive but the only genuinely up-to-date Gixxer is the 1000, with the other bikes running on much older platforms to keep costs down.
1 Unbelievable Aftermarket
Getting a new Gixxer might not be your first option. With a used market as extensive as it is and exceptionally reliable running gear, there are many bargains to be had.
Parts are cheap and there is a wide selection of aftermarket accessories to choose from for any year model of any bike.