Flattering Ram

Scoop rides a bike he almost bought and comes away smiling: Suzuki’s GT250 Ram Air…

- Steve Cooper

It’s mid-1973 and I’m about to sign away my wages for the next few years on a hire purchase agreement buying my first proper motorcycle. Sitting in the windows at Clarks of St Albans either side of the entrance door are a Yamaha RD200 and a Suzuki GT250K. My heart is set on the orange RD but my dad, who will act as guarantor for the HP, takes a shine to the GT. “Are you sure boy?” he asks, “the Suzuki looks like a more substantial machine!” My mind is made up: I’ve read a report by our own John Nutting raving about the Yamaha and I’ve also convinced myself that the Suzuki with its blue pin striping looks naff. Such are the illogical prejudices of impressionable teenagers.

Despite its smaller engine the RD200 is purchased and my life from there on becomes irrationally focused on the tuning fork brand. Yet my choice doesn’t reflect that of the rest of the 1970s L-plate mob. By 1976-1977 the Suzuki GT250 had become the most popular/best-selling learner machine in the UK bar none. So just what was it that made the GT250 so damn prevalent? What did they have that the others apparently lacked? Was the old man right after all?

Four and a bit decades on and I’m about to find out as I’m presented with the keys to an extremely tidy GT250K in that very same colour scheme.

You rarely see early examples of Suzuki’s ultimate 70s learner legal stroker, with just the occasional example displayed at a show, so this is a rare event. Our base for the day is car park near the top of the Black Mountains in South Wales which is a natural stopping point for many riders of modern machinery. Even half a century on there’s obviously something incredibly charismatic about the machine, judging by the heads this bike is turning…