Motorcycling was very different as we went into the 1980s. For most riders, motorcycling represented an inexpensive form of transport rather than a hobby or leisure activity, and the bikes we rode were quite unlike to the ones we buy today.
As we went into the new decade, it didn’t feel like we were on the verge of a groundbreaking era. Big bike design had been pretty static, with the Big Four Japanese manufacturers producing cookie cutter UJMs, Universal Japanese Machines with air-cooled inline four engines and traditional roadster ergonomics.
Heck, MCN had even voted the Triumph Bonneville T140 as its Machine of the Year in 1979. Maybe it was a patriotic choice, or maybe the addition of cast wheels and electric start really had turned a 20 year old design into a world beater, but it did confirm that our industry was really in need of some real innovation.
And 1980 brought us a real icon to kick off the decade. Yamaha’s RD350LC brought watercooling to the masses and created a firecracker lightweight sports bike that was the most desirable machine for young riders. The bike’s legend would be completed by the famed ‘Pro-Am’ race series, which saw up-and-coming racers compete against established stars in a big money televised championship.
Bike racing got a regular airing on ITV’s World of Sport, and although Barry Sheene’s race career was in its twilight years, the two-time world 500cc champion was still a major celebrity who could get motorcycling on the front pages of the national newspapers. There was even a motorcycle racing movie in the cinemas, with heartthrob David Essex starring in 1980’s Silver Dream Racer.
As well as the 350, Yamaha made an RD250LC, which would be the ultimate learner legal motorcycle, until the law was changed to restrict learners to 125s. This big overhaul in the legislation, which had been in place for 20 years, so a short lived fad for the Sidewinder – a lightweight ‘sidecar’ which bolted on to bigger motorbikes and turned them into three-wheelers which were exempted from the new laws.
Honda’s modern looking Super Dream, complete with period composite alloy Comstar wheels and metallic paint finishes, came in 250 and 400cc versions, and was the best selling bike of the time. Life would start moving fast though, and soon those early ‘80s machines would be superseded.
BMW’s R80G/S was introduced in 1980, and although this oddball was overlooked at the time, it would prove to be the seed from which the modern adventure bike would bloom.
Four-valve heads would start to make an appearance on top end bikes at this time. Honda’s CBX and Suzuki’s GSX ranges used the technology to increase performance, while Suzuki’s futuristic looking GSX1100S Katana arrived in 1981 and was the first to break the UJM mould.
A year later, Honda came along with the VF750 – a liquid-cooled, 16 valve V4 which brought completely new thinking to motorcycle design. Reliability issues tarred its reputation, but these were resolved with the later VFR range and shouldn’t overshadow just how significant these designs were.
This period also saw a short-lived dalliance with turbocharged motorcycles. Honda’s unlikely CX500 and Yamaha’s XJ650 got the turbo treatment in 1982, but they were expensive and suffered from awkward power delivery due to the time it took for the turbocharger to spool up. Kawasaki and Suzuki would get in on the act too, but by 1985 it was an experiment which had come and gone.
In 1983 small two-strokes were still popular. Suzuki’s RG250 Gamma was a proper race replica and Yamaha had added an innovative power valve to its RD350LC. The RD350LC YPVS (Yamaha Power Valve System) used technology which allowed the size of the exhaust port to be modified throughout the rev-range, creating an engine with a wider spread of power. Triumph’s apparent last hurrah came in 1983, the company going bankrupt in October.
Orwell might have warned of a dystopian 1984, but in the motorcycling world it was a good year. The story of 1984 has been told many times: Kawasaki introduced the GPZ900R Ninja, the world’s fastest motorcycle (with all the tech, including 16 valves, watercooling and a full fairing) and BMW broke away from its traditional air-cooled boxer engines with the K100 series, which featured a ‘laid down’ engine design. Yamaha unleashed its ultimate sporty two-stroke, the RD500LC, and motorcycles increasingly became more focussed in their designs.
Carole Nash entered the scene in 1985, with Manchester-based Carole initially offering specialist insurance cover for classic motorbike owners, while Suzuki dropped a pair of iconic sportsbikes: the GSX-R750 and RG500 Gamma. Sportsbikes were very much the fashion, with four-strokes like the GSX-R (and Yamaha’s FZ750, which was introduced the same year) taking over from the two-stroke RG and its ilk.
Despite this, ‘strokers’ were still popular lightweight sportsbikes. Yamaha’s TZR250 was a popular addition in 1986, alongside the modern Honda VFR750. Suzuki gave us the bonkers GSX-R1100 and Top Gun came into cinemas, complete with iconic images of Tom Cruise aboard a Kawasaki Ninja.
As the decade started to come to a close, so bikes became sportier still. A new ‘Superbike World Championship’ was due to start in 1988 and, as the race bikes needed to be based on motorcycles we could buy in showrooms, it would lead to even more exotic and racier sportsbikes for us to get excited about. Honda released the limited edition VFR750R (RC30) a racer-for-the-road that would go on to win the first two world superbike titles (along with numerous TTs, endurance races and national championships).
Ducati would become synonymous with superbike racing, the then tiny factory turning out the 851 Superbike. It debuted a new four-valve watercooled engine and would morph into the most successful production race bike of all time in the 1990s.
Yamaha, meanwhile, brought out its sporting FZR range, with the 750 and 1000cc versions featuring their unique 20-valve engines. Smaller bikes weren’t forgotten either. Honda’s CBR600F started a trend for sporty 600s that would peak in the early 2000s, while 250cc two-strokes had one last blast with the introduction of the Kawasaki KR-1 and Suzuki RGV250 in the late ‘80s.
By 1989, Kawasaki’s ZXR750 superbike had entered the fray and the UK now had a generation of motorcyclists obsessed with sportsbikes. In nine years we’d gone from sit-up-and-beg UJMs to full on race replicas which could never have been imagined at the end of the ‘70s.
The ‘90s would be another era of change, with 1990 seeing the introduction of compulsory basic training and the revival of Triumph Motorcycles, but that’s another story for another day – and from an innovation perspective we don’t think we’ll ever see the likes of the 1980s ever again. They were, indeed, exciting times.
