CARB filings from the USA seem to reveal a potential new version of the Suzuki V-Strom 800 DE, possibly pointing to a more sports-touring version of the adventure motorcycle.
CARB filings are environmental documents that must be submitted to the California Air Resources Board (hence CARB) prior to a bike being authorised for sale in the region. While they do allow the state of California to control the vehicles that take to the region’s roads, they sometimes also give eagle-eyed journos a peek into the future.
One such journo is Dennis Chung from the website Motorcycle.com, who managed to capture the 2023/24 filings for the Suzuki range. In the filing for this year, there are four bikes shown to be utilising the recently released parallel twin-cylinder platform, but currently, only two models have been produced that fit that bill. The first is the GSX-8S, a bike we reviewed earlier this year. The second is obviously the middle-weight V-Strom, which is referred to in the document as the V-Strom 800 DE Adventure. But then there is this third bike, and this machine is referred to as just a V-Strom 800. It’s this machine that is thought to be the more road-biased version of the adventure bike.
The current 2023 Suzuki V-Strom 800 DE
The move to add another bike to the range seems like a sensible one, although it would be hurling Suzuki into a very competitive segment of the adventure touring market. Here it would have to do battle with some very established names, like the Yamaha Tracer 900 and Tracer 700, Triumph Tiger 900, Honda NC750, and Ducati Multistrada V2.
How this new model will look is unknown at present, although we can expect Suzuki to ditch the 21-inch front wheel in favour of a more conventional 19-inch item. We’d also expect the spoked wheels, which are great off-road but a pain to keep clean when commuting and touring, to be binned in favour of cast alloy rolling stock. The chassis of the bike would also need some tweaking, and while the same suspension hardware could well be employed, slightly less overall travel and a marginally firmer setting would improve the on-road dynamics.
Given that Suzuki used the EICMA show in Milan last November as the launch pad for the V-Strom 800 DE, should a new model be making an appearance in 2023, we’d expect this new model to also get the same treatment.
