Suzuki Gt 750

That 739cc two-stroke triple pulls with an eerie, turbine-like smoothness that nothing else from 1971 can match — water cooling kills the heat soak that ruins most strokers on a long run, and the midrange torque is genuinely muscular, not peaky. But 231 kg is a lot of motorcycle to haul into a corner, and the chassis reminds you of that fact constantly; it wallows in fast sweepers and the front end communicates about as much as a wet sock. The single front drum brake is the elephant in the room — it's not terrible in isolation, but scrubbing speed from 160 km/h with it requires advance planning and a certain philosophical acceptance of consequences. Still, nothing sounds or pulls quite like this thing, and if you respect its weight and plan your braking early, it rewards you with a riding experience that's genuinely unlike anything Honda or Kawasaki was selling at the time.

That 738cc two-stroke triple pulls with an almost eerie smoothness — the water cooling keeps heat and vibration in check in a way that shames plenty of four-strokes of the era. The new front disc is a genuine improvement over the drum, though combined with those still-soft revised forks it can dive hard under heavy braking and unsettle your line mid-corner. At 232 kg wet she's no lightweight, and you feel every kilogram hauling her off the sidestand on a cold morning, but once rolling the mass disappears and the motor's torque just carries you. Oil injection works reliably, two-stroke spooge on the rear wheel is real if you lug it, and fuel consumption is the one number that'll keep reminding you this isn't a four-stroke.

Those twin front discs on the '74-'75 finally gave you stopping power worthy of the performance — the single drum on the early cars was genuinely frightening at speed, so this change alone makes Gen 3 the one to own. The 739cc triple pulls with an almost turbine-like smoothness from around 4,000 rpm, and by 6,500 it's hauling hard enough to surprise anything at a stoplight without the savage powerband snap you'd expect from a two-stroke. Wet weight of 236 kg is real and felt — slow-speed parking lot maneuvers are a workout, and that low-speed power delivery is soft enough that you can catch yourself lugging it embarrassingly. Oil injection reliability and the revised exhaust tuning mean it runs cleaner than earlier kettles, but budget for fresh power valve seals and coolant hoses if you're buying one today, because 50-year-old rubber doesn't care about your optimism.

I've put nearly 8,000 miles on a '77 GT750 and the water-cooled triple still catches people off guard — that low, burbling exhaust note at idle sounds like nothing else on the road, and by 5,000 rpm it pulls with a smooth, linear urgency that shames plenty of four-strokes. Suzuki's final tweaks to the carbs helped cold-start behavior, though my bike still needs a solid two-minute warm-up on cool mornings before it'll run clean. The 235 kg wet weight is honest and you feel every kilo in slow-speed parking lot maneuvers, but once you're rolling it settles into corners with surprising composure for a machine this heavy and this old. Two-stroke oil consumption is real, the pre-mix system needs vigilance, and finding anyone who can properly tune these carbs in 2024 is its own adventure.