The Origins Of The Hayabusa

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A classic first-year Hayabusa in color and shape. More than 182,000 units have been sold worldwide since 1999, 101,000 of those in the US. (Jeff Allen/)

The Hayabusa made you con­sider things you’d never considered before. Take the definition of “corner.” We all know what that means, right? We find them on winding back roads, or at intersections with other roads. But is there really a corner on the freeway or interstate? No, you say? The 1999 Suzuki GSX1300R Hayabusa said yes.

Let me explain.

At the 1998 press launch for the 1,298cc copper-and-gold beast, it seemed impossible that Suzuki wanted us to spend an entire day at Circuit de Catalunya in Spain, followed by a day of “touring” on the road. Further to this, we even had a track session in the ­morning before our, um, tour. This was a 550-pound missile sent to kill the Honda CBR1100XX Blackbird and crush the previous king of speed, the Kawasaki ZX-11. It wasn’t a racer replica built to win some crazy (nonexistent) 1,300cc ­roadrace championship.

The author kept his original paper invitation to the press launch because the experience in Spain was so profound. (Cycle World Archives/)

Yet there we were. And it was amazing what this bike did on this Spanish Grand Prix racetrack, lap after lap, with only a mildly spongy front brake lever to show for its remarkable speed and not insubstantial weight. Well, that and fairing sides and engine covers that scraped on the tarmac, particularly in the long, right-hand turn 3, where this bike demonstrated stability on the edge of the tire that belied all its might and girth. No one at the launch could believe what we were getting away with. Draft passes as we dipped into fifth gear down the long front straight. The Hayabusa ripped through fifth gear like most bikes did third.

Performance progress is so typically “last year, plus 3 percent” that when a bike like the ­Haya­busa comes along, it sends a shock through the system that tends to change the performance landscape. But it was more than just this great leap in outright performance, it was the remarkable overall balance and sweet rideability of the ­Haya­busa that set it apart. During the press presentation in Spain prior to testing, the public-relations backhoe was running full-steam, and we skeptical journalists all leaned back in our chairs and scoffed when Suzuki said, “The Hayabusa has invented a new category called ‘Ultimate Sport.’” After riding for two days, we were all discussing the merits of this new Ultimate Sport class the Hayabusa had invented.

At the time, the Honda CBR1100XX was the most recent bike in the road-burner class, and it was lovely, smooth, and quite fast, but it was no contest in our June 1999 comparison test with the ‘Busa. Kawasaki tried to strike back with the 2000 ZX-12R and later with the ZX-14, but these fell on each side of the Hayabusa in spirit and never equaled it in performance. The 12R was harder and less comfortable, like a giant sportbike. The 14 felt heavy and soft, early models truly a fright on the racetrack. The Hayabusa had comfort and competence on the road with tractable power and refinement, and also remarkable agility and speed at the racetrack.

There have been many extreme Hayabusas, but Rad Greaves’ GSX1661R racer with downforce-producing wings—long before MotoGP embraced aero to this degree—was one of the most remarkable covered by the magazine. (Cycle World Archives/)

In the years since, every possible thing has been done with a Hayabusa, both in Gen 1 form and the 2008 to current 1,340cc version. You want 500 hp or more? Just make a few calls and the parts will arrive. Rad Greaves cut a Gen 1 model in half to shorten the wheelbase and added wings long before MotoGP ever screwed with it, and raced the bike in AMA Formula Xtreme. I tested one of Greaves’ cut-in-half bikes at Willow Springs International Raceway, and it was the first bike that ever made me wonder if my affairs were in order.

The Cycle World 1999 ­Haya­busa ran a 9.86-second, 146 mph ­quarter-mile—face-meltingly fast for the time and still among the best we’ve ever recorded. It also did 194 mph for the old CW Stalker radar gun, which we are going to bronze and hang on the wall in our office because no bike that gun has recorded before or since will ever go so fast. Yes, the ‘Busa remains the fastest production top speed we have ever recorded, and its over­riding competence in crushing air like this led to the 2000 “gentleman’s agreement” among manufacturers to voluntarily limit top speed to 300 kph, or 186 mph, so that governments wouldn’t intervene. A record attained, then preserved.

The gauge that counts is on the right: a 220 mph speedometer. (Jeff Allen/)

Too beautiful to live and too rare to die? OK, I think we can all agree the ‘Busa isn’t pretty. And, boy, were we confused by its looks when it debuted at the Cologne Show like some copper-colored cosmic suppository. What I will say now is: We just didn’t know that this is what the world’s fastest production motorcycle was supposed to look like. Could it look any other way than how it does?

Six-piston front brakes faded some in hard racetrack use but were otherwise up to the serious task of slowing down the Hayabusa. (Jeff Allen /)

Not long after I finished my First Ride report for Cycle News, where I worked when the bike was launched, I was hired at Cycle World, just in time to take on the Hayabusa as my long-term testbike. There were many great adventures in that 12,000 miles of testing, not least of which was leaving work on a Friday afternoon at about 4 p.m. to crush LA rush hour, and then Mach-speed my way to Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, a 521-mile jaunt up Interstate 5. Like a good citizen who wanted to spend the weekend ripping laps at a two-day Jason Pridmore Star School and not in jail, I mostly obeyed the speed limit, and it took me eight hours. If only I’d been able to use the Hayabusa as intended, I might have done it in four hours, at an easy 160 mph, with gas stops.

The Suzuki Hayabusa remains one of the most balanced and broadly competent motorcycles we have tested. It made 160.5 hp and 100 pound-feet of torque on our dyno in 1999. (Jeff Allen/)

Which brings up this important point: The only flaw with the Haya­busa wasn’t in the bike. It was that the bike was born into a world with laws. Its broad, deep, dense competence deserved a world without puny man-made limitations like traffic lights and speed limits. For two beautiful days in Spain, we rode like newly born gods searching for the end of sixth gear on freeways, dragged fairings while hitting 165 mph or more, lap after lap, on one of the greatest racetracks in the world, going faster and doing more than with any ­other ­production bike ever made. In a career of rare experiences, this pure moment in time allowed a weird bubble of impunity to descend upon us at that press launch, and we got to expe­rience to the fullest extent what this remarkable motorcycle actually meant.

It changed my life.

As much as Suzuki’s soul gets its divine light from the GSX-R, the Hayabusa is where engineering put supernatural powers, with lights and a license plate, in our hands. We never envisioned the aftermarket industry it would spawn and how fast so many could go, or how beautiful it was to ride this bike at “normal” speeds, knowing at any moment you could sample a kind of freedom never experienced by mortals.

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