The seven best motorbikes of the '80s

1980 – BMW R80G/S

After a less-than-salubrious ’50s and ’60s, BMW found itself propped up by its motorcycle marque, with its torquey boxer engine doing what it did best – pulling – although in this case it was pulling the company through hardship.

However, while the arrival of the 2002 changed the tide for the car manufacturer, by the late-‘70s the motorcycle division was under serious threat from the rapidly growing Japanese market.

Faced with inevitable closure if it could not turn a profit, Karl Heinz Gerlinger, appointed deputy director of Motorrad in 1979, knew the brand needed something revolutionary. And luckily, a group of off-road enthusiast BMW engineers had created just that.

With nothing to lose, BMW Motorrad took on their ‘Red Devil’ concept and developed it into a new breed of adventure bike – heavier than the popular single-cylinder Japanese trailies, but able to cover a greater distance at higher speeds. Fans call it the first ‘true’ adventure bike.

The BMW R80 Gelände/Straße (offroad/road) featured a reworked R80 engine, the R65’s twin-loop steel frame and the R100’s front forks – pre-existing parts chosen in order to launch the bike quicker – plus a combined Monolever driveshaft and rear suspension, larger air filter and raised two-in-one exhaust.

After extensive off-road testing, the model was launched at the 1980 Cologne Motor Show to some confusion, but otherwise success. By the end of 1981, the manufacturer had sold 6,631 R80 G/Ses – double its target and accounting for 20 per cent all BMW bikes sold.

It took the 1981 Paris-Dakar rally, however, and Hubert Auriol’s victory aboard a works BMW (plus Jean-Claude Morellet’s fourth place and privateer German policeman Bernard Neimer’s seventh) to convince the motorcycling public of its potential. The wins kept on coming – for Auriol at the 1983 Pairis-Dakar and the Baja desert race, too – and with Belgian rider Gaston Rahier and Auriol taking a 1 – 2 at the 1984 edition of the infamous African rally raid.

P – D conversion kits and special models arrived in due course, and by 1987 21,864 bikes had been produced – impressive numbers at the time, but surprisingly few compared to the popularity that the GS family has gone on to achieve, with the manufacturer celebrating its 500,000th GS in 2009. But the low production figures explain the premium that the model commands nowadays, with well-fettled examples costing in excess of £10,000.

1981 – Suzuki GSX1100S Katana

Retro is oh-so-cool nowadays, as has been characterised by the launch of countless repro machines. Take the BMW RnineT Urban GS, for example, or Kawasaki’s Z900 RS Café Racer.

Not wanting to miss out on the antique action, Suzuki recently relaunched its own Katana, with a similar edgy styling to the 80’s original. But as is often the case, the copycat model fell far short of its epic bigger brother.

What made the original Katana so cool, you may wonder? It’s hard to put a finger on it, but it’s something between the radical design, and the fact that it was (according to Suzuki) the fastest mass-production motorcycle in the world.

Designed by the German ‘Target Design’ Team, the Katana was the first motorcycle to be outsourced to a design house, and its avant-garde design proved marmite to the motorcycling masses.

But, with a 1,075cc transverse 4 cylinder making 111PS (109bhp) at 8500rpm and 96Nm (71lb ft) at 6500rpm it was undeniably powerful, and its incredibly well-engineered ergonomics made for an incredible riding position.

While the originals are rare today, even more so are the limited edition 1,000cc racing version.

1984 – Kawasaki GPZ900R

Made famous by Tom Cruise’s Top Gun character Maverick, the GPZ900R was Kawasaki’s first ever Ninja and the first production bike to break the 150mph barrier, with a top speed of 151mph at launch.

Debuting in 1984, it featured the world's first 16-valve liquid-cooled inline-four motorcycle engine. It was so far ahead of anything other manufacturers had produced that Kawasaki reportedly spent six years developing it in secret.

The Ninja 900, as it was known, produced 117PS (115bhp) at 9,500rpm and 87Nm (64lb ft) of peak torque at 8,500rpm from its 908cc powertrain, which was coupled to a six-speed constant-mesh gearbox and a wet multi-disc clutch.

The compact unit was mounted low in the steel frame, and used as a stressed member, allowed designers to do away with the subframe, shaving weight and improving the bike’s manoeuvrability. Combined with fairly standard suspension for the era – a telescopic, air-adjustable fork at the front and a Uni-Trak air shock at the rear – the Ninja 900 was a revolution in the realm of sportsbikes. It was a worthy successor to the Z1 and epitomised squared-off ‘80s design.

1984 – Suzuki RG500 Gamma

Suzuki’s RG500 is an undeniable ‘80s icon. While the race bike was first launched in 1973, it wasn’t until 1984 that it became available to the general public – a performance-focussed two-stroke weapon.

With an already established racing career, the road model didn’t need much marketing to make it a success – after all, this was the machine that Barry Sheene alone would eventually win a total of 18 races and two world titles aboard.

Almost a carbon copy of the model that Italian world champion Franco Uncini rode that season (and very similar to the model that had won consecutive 500cc Riders' Championships in 1981 and 1982), the road-going RG500 featured a naturally aspirated, four-cylinder two-stroke engine displacing some 498cc.

As with any two strokes of its time, it demanded to be ridden at high revs, with lots of gear changes. Its square four – a revolutionary design which centralised mass to create a more balanced motorcycle – produced 96PS (95bhp), and at 154kg dry, it was lighter than the competitors of its day.

1988 – Suzuki DR Big

 Another motorcycle to be the recent subject of a revamp, the Suzuki DR 800 S Big has made our list not for its technical prowess (it reportedly had soft suspension and a weak front brake), but rather the resulting impact it had on adventure motorcycling.

The adventure beak? You can thank the DR Big for that. The outrageously large fuel tank? Yep, that too… An insanely high seat? It’s in the name – at 876mm, the DR Big was among the first bikes to banish the vertically challenged among us. 

Released in 1988, the DR Big was powered by the largest single-cylinder engine the world had ever seen, displacing 727cc (that was until they increased the stroke and the displacement to 799cc in 1990) and producing 52PS (51bhp).

It was a behemoth, and with a gargantuan 30-litre fuel tank (later reduced to 23 litres) boasted the continent crossing appeal of any adventure machine worth its mettle. It made its Paris-Dakar debut in 1988 in the hands of Gaston Rahier, an incandescent yellow duck bobbing across the sands of the Sahara.

1988 – Honda VFR750R RC30

No list of ‘80s icons would be complete without the RC30. Built to satisfy World Superbike Championship homologation purposes, it was a fully-faired, single seat sportsbike, filled with race-derived technology. Even today, more than 30 years later, it’s unequivocally the machine against which all superbikes are compared.

Soon after its debut, the racing RC30 won the first two World Superbike Championships (1988 and 1989) in the hands of American Fred Merkel, while across the pond at the Isle of Man TT, Carl Fogarty and Steve Hislop were making Honda history.

Derived from the manufacturer’s RVF750 endurance racer, the RC30 was powered by a 748cc gear-driven double overhead camshaft V4, with the road going version producing 120PS (118bhp) at 9,500rpm and 70Nm (52lb ft) at 7,000rpm.

In a first for a production machine – using the term ‘production’ lightly, for only 3,000 were built – it featured high-performance competition components, including titanium connecting rods, intake and exhaust valves in the cylinder head, a slipper clutch, a single-sided swingarm, fully adjustable Showa suspension at both ends and fork sliders that held the front brake callipers in place during quick wheel changes.

The design spoke for itself, a beautiful amalgamation of form and function – the latter taking precedent of course. The twin-spar aluminium frame peeked from beneath square fairings, the HRC colours sweeping from the forks to the tail. It set a benchmark for fast class.

1988 – Honda Africa Twin

Name a more iconic adventure motorcycle – I’ll wait.

While the later (1989 – 2003) XRV750 may spring to mind when you think of the original Africa Twin, it was actually the XRV650 that created the legend that we know today.

A direct descendent of the Dakar-winning NXR 750 – the first water-cooled motorcycle to take the title – the XRV650 RD03 launched in May 1988.

Painted in the same HRC colours as the racing machine, and featuring a 647cc V-twin, which made 58PS (57bhp) at 8,000rpm and 55Nm (41lb ft) at 6,000rpm, it was a lightweight, versatile adventure-touring machine. Long travel suspension and high-spec components made it perfect for round-the-world trips, for which many are still used today.

This model wasn't officially imported to the UK, but its successor, the RD-04, was. And a quick look online shows that it’s one of the few ‘80s legends to not have yet rocketed in price, with middling-mileage variants available on the continent from as little as €3,500.