Superbikes of the 70s
1 Honda CB750
Bikes with exceptional performance have always existed. In the Fifties they were called Road Burners, but as the Sixties came to an end and Honda introduced the CB750 Four a new name was coined – Superbike. There had never been anything like it before. Metallic paintwork sparkled in the sun and the biggest Honda flaunted four silencers stacked two on each side, just like Hailwood’s RC181.
The CB750 was an extremely sophisticated motorcycle with a single overhead cam, five speed gearbox, electric start and even indicators. It was superbly engineered, very smooth and delivered its 67bhp with no fuss. Such a motorcycle needed excellent brakes and the Honda was fitted with a single disc up front. Sure discs were available on some motorcycles, but not a mass produced one and the CB750 out-stopped anything else on the road. The Japanese had built up a reputation for quality, reliability and cleanliness, and the competitively priced CB750 was a hot seller even before Dick Mann won the 1970 Daytona 200-miler on one in 1970.
True, it couldn’t be chucked around like a British twin, but the CB750 was the future and it changed biking for ever. The Seventies was the decade of the Superbike, with manufacturers from Europe and Japan racing to build the biggest, fastest, most outrageous Superbike. Some even handled reasonably well. So check out our slide show and see what all the fuss was about.
2 Laverda Jota
The Jota is the ultimate Seventies musclebike. Big, loud and orange the Italian heavyweight scaled over 550lb (250kg) with a tank of petrol but that didn’t stop it winning a string of production races. This brute handles as well as the best – if you show it who is boss. Although the Jota was built in Italy, it was officially only a UK model as it had been developed by Roger Slater, the importer.
Slater’s tuning tweaks pushed the top speed to over 140mph and made it the fastest production road bike of the Seventies. That’s when you really appreciated the triple Brembo discs.
3 Suzuki RE5
In the Seventies some people thought that the rotary engine was the future, and Suzuki came up with the RE5 in 1974. It certainly looked futuristic, with its cylindrical instrument console with a flip-up lid, but although it was unbelievably smooth it was incredibly thirsty and it was also heavy. A GT550 Suzuki triple was a better bike at a fraction of the cost, and so production came to an end in 1977.
4 Harley-Davidson XLCR
Denigrated as the Extra Large Cafe Racer by Harley detractors, the XLCR has now gained cult status. Although the 115mph top speed is nothing to write home about, the clutch is heavy and the gearchange clunky the 1000cc V-Twin looks mean and lean in its all-black livery. Even if it does weigh a porky 520-lbs.
5 Norton Commando
The Commando is a brilliant piece of British creativity that rescued a powerful engine that would otherwise vibrate the fillings out of your teeth by mounting it in a frame with rubber damping. Any sane person would have thought the Isolastic frame would ruin the handling and dump the rider in the bushes at the first high speed curve, but the Commando is a sports roadster that offers a sensational blend of shattering performance, well mannered tractability, race-bred handling and fierce stopping power. Peter Williams developed a race version and rode it to a record-smashing victory in the 1973 Formula 750TT.
6 Kawasaki Z1
When Seventies bikers talked about The King they weren’t talking about Elvis. Petrol heads worshiped the 1972 Z1 as the first double-overhead-camshaft four cylinder motorcycle that anyone could buy. Twist the wrist and the tachometer needle would sweep effortlessly around the dial. With an honest 82bhp available it was the fastest accelerating, most powerful production motorcycle ever built. And if you rode through the speed wobble at 120mph The King would straighten itself out again. It took chassis designers 10 years to catch up.
7 Ducati 750SS
When Paul Smart and Bruno Spaggiari finished first and second in the 1972 Imola 200 Mile race, it was one of the biggest surprises of all time. Their Ducati 750cc L-Twins had beaten the best from Suzuki, Honda, Kawasaki, MV and Triumph. Almost immediately the Bologna factory offered a production version – the 750 Super Sport. Designed by Fabio Taglioni, the engine featured bevel driven camshafts, but in a stroke of genius he opened and closed the valves with a system that became known the world over as ‘desmodromic’. The 750SS is one of the most beautiful sports bikes ever made.
Yes, the finish was typically Italian so paint flaked and chrome rusted, but it was the way the Ducati performs on the open road that shows why this is the definitive café racer.
8 BMW R90S
BMW always had a reputation for luxury long distance tourers, but by the Seventies they were loosing out in the performance stakes. Then along came the R90S with its trend-setting cockpit fairing, stylish sports seat, twin front discs and the refinement of a clock and voltmeter. The sports tag came courtesy of a compression hike to 9.5:1 and a pair of enormous 38mm Dell’Orto carbs in place of the tourer’s 32mm Bing CV carbs. It might not have been the fastest superbike of the Seventies, but if you had a long road to travel there was nothing on two wheels that could cover the distance faster or deliver you feeling fresher. It was Germany’s sexiest superbike.
9 Munch Mammut
The Münch Mammut was in a class of its own - the most exotic, the most expensive and the heaviest motorcycle money could buy. The NSU car engine was sophisticated but heavy so many components were made from exotic light Elektron alloy. Acceleration is astounding: 0-70mph in 4.5 seconds, cruising at 100mph is effortless. There was even a TTS-ET Turbo, a 1400cc monster with fuel injection and top speed of 152mph.
10 Moto Guzzi Le Mans
The Lemon wasn’t the fastest bike you could buy in 1976 or the quickest over the standing quarter. But on the open road or on the racetrack the Italian V-twin came into its own. Brilliant brakes, superb handling and an unburstable engine with shaft drive put the Guzzi at the top of many enthusiasts’ wish list. The chrome and paint finish let it down, but that was a small price to pay to own a real thoroughbred.
11 Triumph X75 Hurricane
Nowadays the X75 is one of the most sought-after superbikes of the Seventies, on show in museums and art galleries around the world. But this is more than a poseur’s toy. The Hurricane is a surprisingly good motorcycle. Craig Vetter might have taken some of his styling cues from the West Coast chopper craze, but the Hurricane has more than a passing resemblance to American flat-trackers. Wide handlebars might make high-speed cruising a chore as you take the full force of the wind but, in spite of the long wheelbase, the Hurricane can be tipped into bends on twisty backroads with barely a nudge of countersteer.
12 Egli Vincent
Fritz Egli built his first Vincent engined special in 1966 and won the Swiss Hillclimb Championship on it, and Brit Roger Slater started importing them in 1970. Egli’s spine frame was based on the theory that all stresses should be along short straight lines. Long, curved tubes were a no-no. He used a massive 4.5in diameter (115mm) top tube that doubled as an oil tank, and a swingarm that pivots from the rear engine plates on taper roller bearings. Forks were by Ceriani, with either Campagnolo disc brakes or a Grimeca drums. The Black Shadow engine was good for over 125mph.
13 Yamaha XS1100
The first four-cylinder four-stroke from Yamaha, the shaft drive XS1100 was long and heavy but when you got it rolling none of that mattered. This long distance tourer will cruise all day at over 90mph and even at that speed it will still accelerate with astounding ease thanks to a generous 95bhp. At its launch in 1978 it was the largest Japanese motorcycle in production.
14 Hesketh
The Hesketh was a hand-built motorcycle with a massive, gleaming alloy engine acting as a stressed member in the nickel-plated frame of Reynolds 531 tubing. The front cylinder was almost horizontal, just like a Ducati. Forks were by Marzocchi, there were Girling twin shocks and Nippon Denso instruments and Bosch lights. Brakes were courtesy of Brembo, and the clutch was operated hydraulically – a first on a production motorcycle. Finished in a gorgeous red (the alloy tank was supposed to have 18 coats of paint) and set off with five-spoke gold Astralite wheels it looked pretty impressive.
15 MV Agusta America
Even in an era when four-cylinder motorcycles were commonplace, the MV was special. Japanese bikes might have had more power and some had a higher top speed. And they all cost a lot less. But nothing came close to the Italian ‘fire engine’ for looks or sound. With a responsive engine, taut high-speed steering and one of the greatest exhaust notes in the history of motorcycling the MV experience was hard to beat.
16 Honda CBX 1000
Introduced in 1978, the sensational CBX engine featured twin cams, 24 valves and six cylinders to deliver 105hp. The CBX was designed by a team headed by Soichiro Irimajiri, the same man responsible for the bikes that Hailwood and Redman raced. As Irimajiri-san wanted to keep the wheelbase as short as possible he used a spine frame, so there are no downtubes. It also means you get an uninterrupted view of that wonderful engine!
This article was taken from: Bike Trader