1983 SUZUKI XN85, 675CC Four-Cylinder TurboCharged

SUZUKI’S SPECIAL EDITIONS

MODEL: SUZUKI XN85
YEAR: 1983
ENGINE: 675CC FOUR-CYLINDER TURBOCHARGED
OWNER: TONY ARMSTRONG
OWNED: 15 YEARS

MODEL: SUZUKI RE5
YEAR: 1976
ENGINE: 500CC SINGLE-CYLINDER WANKEL ROTARY
OWNER: TONY ARMSTRONG
OWNED: 20 YEARS

Tony Armstrong, owner of Springwood Suzuki in Brisbane, knows better than most the capabilities and value of the motorcycle. A former champion motorcycle racer – he won the 1987 Australian Superbike championship and raced for many years amongst the sport’s elite – Tony has been assembling a collection of classic motorcycles for years with the showroom of his business housing not only the latest models from Suzuki, Aprillia, Moto Guzzi and KTM, but also a few personal favourites from the past.

With almost a lifetime spent riding, racing, repairing and selling motorcycles, Tony clearly has an eye for a classic machine and amongst those personal favourites are a 1980s Suzuki RG500, a number of GT750s, a Suzuki Katana and an original Suzuki GSXR750 – the model upon which he won his Australian Superbike Championship.

But he also owns a couple of other very unusual and rare bikes – the Suzuki RE5 and the Suzuki XN85.

Motorcycle manufacturers have always been innovative and the RE5 and XN85 are fine examples of that creativity. Though separated by nearly a decade, both owe their existence to Suzuki toying with new ideas of how to produce the power to move them. The RE5, for instance, first introduced in 1974, is powered by a single-cylinder Wankel rotary engine – the use of which gave the bike its name (RE5 stood for Rotary Engine 500cc).

Though the other big Japanese manufacturers also seriously studied the use of the rotary engine in their bikes, only Suzuki pushed the button to go into production, mustering some 6000 units over the bike’s two-year run.

Nearly a decade later, the XN85 (the 85 stood for the supposed horsepower the engine produced) was launched with a four-cylinder 675cc turbocharged engine – the turbo being another unusual departure for a motorcycle engine. This time, there was some competition for Suzuki with most manufacturers having a stab at producing a turbocharged machine. The idea though, as was the case for rotary-powered bikes, never seemed to catch on and only 1100 XN85’s were built over the year of its manufacture.

“I’ve been collecting old motorcycles, mainly Suzuki’s, for the past 25 years,” says Tony. “And I’ve had the RE5 for 20 years and the XN85 for about 15 years.

“When the rotary Suzuki came out in 1974 it was a very different bike. Back then, everyone was playing around with the idea of a rotary motorcycle but only Suzuki stuck with it. The model I have is one of the last made. It looks a bit like a GT750 – it has the same gauges and indicators – but it has the 497cc single-cylinder rotary, which is very unusual.

“As for the XN85 – that was only built for one year,” he adds. “They probably had them in stock for a lot longer than that though, as they weren’t a big seller! I’ve been at Springwood Suzuki since 1981 so I was actually selling the XN85 when it was brand new and, I have to say, they were hard work – let’s just say they didn’t fly out of the door! It was a bike that just didn’t catch the public imagination.

“I think the manufacturers thought, ‘What’s the next big thing?’ and suddenly everyone had a turbo motorcycle. There was the CX650 Honda, the 650XJ Yamaha and Kawasaki had a 750 that was probably the best seller of all of them because of its bigger engine capacity and more horsepower. I’m not sure what numbers it sold, but it would definitley have been more than the XN85.”

There was, perhaps, a bit of luck in Tony finding and buying these unusual bikes.

“I was at a motorcycle auction and put my hand up a couple of times for an RE5 before someone tapped me on the shoulder and told me that he knew where there was a better one for sale,” says Tony. ‘He put me onto the gentleman who owned this RE5 and I’ll just say that I got it for a fair price that made everyone happy!

“As for the XN85 – I bought that from a customer who came into the shop. It had very low kms and was, and is, in showroom condition. This one is the only one in this condition that I have seen. And I probably haven’t seen a better condition RE5 either.”

Tony hasn’t ridden the bikes for a while – they take pride of place as two-wheel works of art in his showroom – but he recalls how well they perform.

“I keep them on display and it has been a few years since I’ve ridden them,” he says. “But the XN85 is a very sweet handling bike. The RE5 too is a very smooth bike to ride.
In fact, the rotary engine is so smooth you can sit a glass of water on the tank, rev the engine and the water just won’t spill – it’s that smooth.”

For Tony, trying to pick a favourite from these two classics is a difficult job – both are equally important to him.

“They are both special because they’re both a bit unique, a bit different,” he says. “They were motorcycles that were designed ‘outside the square’. Those engines came along just for a brief period in the ‘70s and ‘80s and really they haven’t been looked at since for use in motorcycles.

“A rotary would, in fact, be an especially tricky proposition these days – there wouldn’t be many bike mechanics that would have even seen one!”

While the RE5 and the XN85 remain treasured items, and he will likely always have one eye scanning the roads for other classic bikes, there is one motorcycle that Tony would really love to get his hands on. And it isn’t a road bike from the 60s or 70s, or a decades-old BSA, or a classic Triumph. Rather, it’s a bike much closer to his heart.

“It would be the Suzuki GSXR750 with which I won the Australia Superbike title,” he says. “I sold it years after I had won the championship to someone who really wanted it . . . so I probably would pay to have it back one day. I know who has it and I know where it is . . . so, we’ll see!”