Orphans of the 70s

Orange and lime green -- they’re the colours that typify the ’70s. It was a time when we liked our colours loud and our bikes even louder. Some regard it as a taste-free decade and they may be right. What you can’t ignore, however, is the wild and woolly range of machinery offered by manufacturers desperately trying to work out what the fickle and rapidly growing motorcycle public really wanted.

They backed some winners, built some absolute howlers and, somewhere in between, came up with what seemed like decent bikes that just couldn’t find an audience. Meet the motorcycle orphans of the ’70s...

The ambitious styling by Giorgetto Giugiaro (who also penned the first VW Golf) was not a winner in the showroom. However, the machine scored plenty of praise from road tests, albeit with reservations about the first model (opposite page). It could develop a slight weave on high speed turns, which turned out to be the fault of the high and wide handlebars.

The 1976 860GTS (pictured above right) scored lower handlebars and a useful second disc on the front end, plus a very welcome electric starter.

There’s a somewhat scurrilous story surrounding this bike and Australian racing: a hand-built ‘SS’ version was entered in the production event at the Easter Bathurst races, with the legendary Ken Blake at the helm.

It won, but was subject to vehement protests that it was not in fact a production model. Though the protests failed, the next SS to leave the factory doors was in fact a 900.

While the 65hp (48kW) 860GTS was pretty much universally regarded as a delightful ride, the styling bombed. The company was also selling its ill-fated vertical twins, so the future was looking grim and the 860 was short lived.

Long-established stylist Leopoldo Tartarini was pulled back into the fold to fix the problem and came up with one of the company’s most popular models, the 900 Darmah.

KAWASAKI z1000 MkII
It’s 1979 and the decade that can be held responsible for some of the tackiest (and best!) styling the earth has ever seen is drawing to a close. Kawasaki’s legendary Z900/1000 series has earned more than its fair share of headlines and is being swamped by challengers such as Yamaha’s XS1100, the Honda CB900F Bol d’Or and Suzuki’s sweet GS1000S.

Kawasaki had responded with the more aggressive-looking Z1R and Z1R MkII, but still saw a niche for the relatively plain Z1000 MkII -- effectively the last of the series.

The appearance was dignified rather than racy, which belied the fact this version had benefitted from nearly a decade of development – something that made it perform far better than its sensible clothes would suggest.

No less than 102hp (75kW) were claimed, which gave the MkII a handy turn of speed: 12.1 seconds over the standing quarter and a top speed of around 210km/h. It handled and braked respectably, while reliability was never going to be in question.

By far the biggest objection for most was the boat-tail rear end, which at the time was just too weird for the average punter to cope with.

As a package, the $5000 FX was a questionable ride. The Shovelhead 80-cube engine was not a star performer and reliability was often poor.

Sales were slow and the controversial rear end was dropped for a more conventional look a year later. However, sales didn’t really take off until an electric start was added with the FXE variant of 1974.
The big thing the Super Glide had going for it was the nameplate. If you wanted a big cruiser or basis for a chopper, this was the only one with any street cred.

History has been kind to the Shovel series, which has gained popularity as a restoration project. First-model Super Glides have started to make it on to the collector radar with a neat example recently fetching $US23,000 ($A23,000). If you’ve been hiding one behind the chook shed all these years, now is a good time to dust it off.

SILK 700S
Briton George Silk had a straightforward vision, which was to produce a light, low and simple performance bike based on an existing powerplant with a long history.

Enter the Silk 700S in 1975, a parallel-twin, liquid-cooled two-stroke displacing 653cc and weighing a feather-like (for its class) 140kg. That was matched to a claimed 54 (40kW) in Mk II form, which meant very respectable performance.

The engine in fact was a development of that used in the Scott Flying Squirrel, dating back to the mid 1920s. While it had its detractors, there is no question the original design was way ahead of its time and should have gone on to greater things given a bigger development budget.

Aside from being a low-volume two-stroke at a time when mass market four-strokes were establishing supremacy, the Silk had the added disadvantage of being hugely expensive – about 1.5 times what you would expect to pay for a 750 from a rival Japanese firm.

It was hand-built (just two made per week) and included a Spondon-designed frame, but the ancillary equipment was basic and the £1355 price remained difficult to justify.

Silk was losing money on every bike made and was taken over by a mob called the Furmanite International Group in 1976. It went on to develop the model further, badging the ultimate £2482 version the Sabre.
Production levels were raised a little, but in the end Furmanite decided it couldn’t live with losing something like 200 quid per machine. Production was stopped in 1979 with just a few hundred machines having been made.

YAMAHA XS750
Yamaha’s XS750 had it all, really. A punchy triple-cylinder powerplant with a bit of character, low maintenance shaft drive, ample fuel capacity, and a respectable chassis. However, it weighed over 300kg.

Reviewers loved it and it won awards. In explaining why it liked the machine, Cycle magazine in the USA wrote in 1977: “Because it works, because it’s a capable, unintrusive, versatile and a complete package, and because it doesn’t have to make up for inadequacies in one area with over-abundances in another.”

However, the shaft drive meant sports-oriented riders regarded it as a tourer, while tourers looked askance at the ‘mere’ 750cc capacity.

The second version of the bike, the $2299 2D of 1977, had some useful refinements, but sales remained sluggish. The 750 grew into an 850 in 1980 ($2999), by which time its sales were struggling more than ever.
The XS750/850 was a model that deserved to do better in the marketplace. Most are by now worn out, but a well-kept one will be a surprisingly good ride.

Of course the compromise was you weren’t getting the flagship 979cc engine from the R100 series, though you still got the shaft drive, generous fuel tank capacity and very similar ancillaries to the big chaps.

But in a market where size matters, R65 sales didn’t reflect the competence of the model.

In essence the R65 powerplant was a ground-up design, but with very similar architecture and appearance to the bigger ‘airhead’ motors. Power was a modest 45hp (33kW) for a bike weighing about 180kg dry.

Handling was far more nimble than for the big chaps, but there was an art to getting a smooth ride out of a R65, thanks to a combination of strong shaft drive rise and fall, a little torque reaction on the throttle, plus a slow shift mechanism.

The R65 underwent a major update (twin discs up front are the big visual difference) in 1981, followed by the dramatically styled R65LS in 1982.

Story courtesy of Motorcycle Trader.