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01-12-2001, 07:06am
Four-wheeled superbike or motorcycle-tech, featherweight sports car? Suzuki's revealing GSX-R/4 may well be the best of both.
Unveiled with relatively little fuss at last week's Frankfurt Motor Show, the GSX-R/4 is – surprise, surprise – a joint effort between Suzuki's car and bike designers. The general Frankfurt flurry now over, the purposeful Suzuki concept has also proved to be one of the most dynamic cars to come out of the show.
The car is virtually a four-wheeled version of Suzuki's Hyabusa – the 320km/h super road bike named after a Japanese bird of prey – complete with bike-like wind-in-the-hair sensations. It's a Clubman-style road car for the 2000s, if you like.
The engine is a 130kW version of the Hyabusa's 1.3-litre engine, said to rev to a shrieking 10,000rpm. The six-speed sequential gearbox is straight from the superbike, too.
The car is built around a Hyabusa-style aluminium spaceframe chassis and weighs just 640kg. Hence a good part of the post-Frankfurt excitement.
The GSX-R/4's 4.9kg/kW power-to-weight ratio puts it squarely in BMW CSL territory – the significantly-lightened, "experimental" version of the M3 also launched at Frankfurt. The little Suzuki's punchy power-to-weight ratio also outshines that of the Lotus Exige (5.4kg/kW) – the car against which the GSX-R/4 is now being most readily compared.
Suzuki is claiming a top speed of 225km/h.
The suspension is a double wishbone system with – here's the part we really like – exposed adjustable spring-over dampers poking through the bonnet. Just the thing for fine-tuning your weekend lap times.
In fact, the interior is said to be bare-bones apart from a sat-nav system which includes detailed circuit maps, a stopwatch and basic race telemetry.
Unveiled with relatively little fuss at last week's Frankfurt Motor Show, the GSX-R/4 is – surprise, surprise – a joint effort between Suzuki's car and bike designers. The general Frankfurt flurry now over, the purposeful Suzuki concept has also proved to be one of the most dynamic cars to come out of the show.
The car is virtually a four-wheeled version of Suzuki's Hyabusa – the 320km/h super road bike named after a Japanese bird of prey – complete with bike-like wind-in-the-hair sensations. It's a Clubman-style road car for the 2000s, if you like.
The engine is a 130kW version of the Hyabusa's 1.3-litre engine, said to rev to a shrieking 10,000rpm. The six-speed sequential gearbox is straight from the superbike, too.
The car is built around a Hyabusa-style aluminium spaceframe chassis and weighs just 640kg. Hence a good part of the post-Frankfurt excitement.
The GSX-R/4's 4.9kg/kW power-to-weight ratio puts it squarely in BMW CSL territory – the significantly-lightened, "experimental" version of the M3 also launched at Frankfurt. The little Suzuki's punchy power-to-weight ratio also outshines that of the Lotus Exige (5.4kg/kW) – the car against which the GSX-R/4 is now being most readily compared.
Suzuki is claiming a top speed of 225km/h.
The suspension is a double wishbone system with – here's the part we really like – exposed adjustable spring-over dampers poking through the bonnet. Just the thing for fine-tuning your weekend lap times.
In fact, the interior is said to be bare-bones apart from a sat-nav system which includes detailed circuit maps, a stopwatch and basic race telemetry.