-defining Bandit 600, while Foggy’s second World Superbike title gave British biking a massive boost.BUDGET BRILLIANCEFew people took much notice when Suzuki announced a new 599cc naked in-line four that combined simple styling and a vaguely promising spec with a

The big technical advances of the 1980s, such as liquid-cooling and aluminium frames, were common by ’88 but this was another great year. Japan’s Big Four launched hot new models, Ducati led an Italian fightback, Norton proved the British bike

rider, and Suzuki and Yamaha launched their first four-stroke superbikes...BEST DEBUTSuzuki’s GS750 four was in many ways a rip-off of Kawasaki’s mighty Z1000, which was still the most powerful Jap superbike in ’77. But boy, did Suzuki’s engineers get

was obviously serious.This was mind-blowing stuff for anyone who’d witnessed the seemingly terminal decline of the British bike industry. Bloor himself was polite but blunt, explaining his huge investment (bewildering to all of us who’d seen so many high

removed from the superbikes of today and were a million miles from the air-cooled, twin-shock brutes with which the decade had begunCheer of the YearIt was spine-tingling to stand near the finish line of the new Phillip Island circuit and hear the roar

Superbike win on a Honda RC30. A wild-eyed young Brit called Fogarty won the Formula One world title, also on an RC30.BRITS ON TOPIt was a vintage year for British racing, as Steve Spray won the two main National titles aboard a black-and-gold Norton rotary

raft of British stars.Also Starred...Superbike of the year was Honda’s high-tech CB1100R, created to win prestigious production races. Based on the CB900F and sporting a tuned 1,162cc engine, top-level chassis bits and a half-fairing, the 1100R purred

with tons of midrange, and handled better than any previous Jap superbike. My own black GSX was a great streetbike and a competitive proddy racer. Despite constant thrashing and many crashes it was almost indestructible too.CLASSIEST DEBUT PART 1Ducati

1978The magazine article that predicted that “1978 is going to be a hell of a year for biking” was understating the case: it was indisputably one of the best ever. The fierce battle for superbike supremacy saw Japan’s Big Four each launch

of several I’d owned, but still vibrated enough to send its tax disc holder flying into a hedge.It was weird to head back out of the factory ten minutes later on a tall, fully-faired superbike whose turbine-smooth four-pot engine could have come from any