Radical Rerun

Going under the sword with the 2020 Suzuki Katana

- SETH RICHARDS

In 1980, Cycle World dubbed the four-valve Suzuki GS1100 “the best all-around superbike in history.” It turned the quarter-mile in 11.39 seconds at 118.42 mph. It was arguably the finest-handling Japanese production motorcycle of the time. It was practical; it got 47.4 mpg on the CW test loop, and it was as comfortable as anything without a Windjammer fairing. It was a formidable large-capacity motorcycle with real presence. It may have been exceptional, but the GS1100 was nothing new.

Like other iconic superbikes of the era—the Kawasaki Z1 and Honda CB750, for instance—the big GS exemplified the Japanese motorcycle industry’s conservative approach toward design. Wide bars, circular headlights, and bread-loaf seat were the status quo. To the unacquainted in 2020, there aren’t a lot of visual cues that distinguish the era’s sit-up superbikes from the more plebeian UJMs that sprouted in their midst.

It’s as if Suzuki product planner Etsuo Yokouchi divined the GS’s inevitable decay—chrome oxidized from years of neglect, vinyl ignominiously patched with duct tape fraying at the edges, steel tank pasted with wet leaves. The 2020 version of the best all-around superbike of 1980 is a forgotten also-ran marooned beside a rotting front porch in the damp corner of rural-town USA.

It takes little stretch of the imagination to envision Yokouchi, in search of something future-proof, kicking around the Hamamatsu factory like some bored kid in the backwaters, hankering to change the world.