The quintessential Blade that was so good it was generally overlooked, the underrated GSX-R750 that was admired by those who bought one and the R1 a Japanese bike with styling that matched the Italians
No matter what you may read, here in the UK we are still very much a sportsbike-orientated market with over 25,000 of this type of bike alone sold each year. With that kind of a vast turn-over it’s not surprising that there are so many of them taking up space in secondhand dealers up and down the country. But which one is the best to go for?
In our opinion it’s these three. Honda’s 2002 FireBlade, or the 954 Blade as it’s affectionately known, is the best Blade ever built - fact. And Suzuki’s 2004 GSX-R750 and Yamaha’s 2002 YZF-R1 were the first of the truly stylish Jap fours. Each of these bikes was slightly over-shadowed in its day by a more headline-attention grabbing rival, but now are proving stars of the secondhand market. And rightly so. These are the epitome of modern classics just waiting to get old.
While the weather outside may not be enticing you to get on a sportsbike, that doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of the coating of gloom hanging over your dealer’s showroom and screw a really good deal out of them. Price tags are only a guide in the current climate and money is starting to talk very loudly indeed. Turn up with the cold, hard cash and you might very well walk away with a bargain buy. So why not make it one of these three...
First up is the 2002 Honda Fireblade 954
