| July 4, 2024
Cycle News Archives
COLUMN
Simpler Times
By Kent Taylor
“Can it be,” sang Barbra Streisand, all the way back in 1974, “that it was all so simple then?”
The way we were, at least the life as we knew it as motorcyclists in 1974, certainly seemed less complex than the way we are today. Ride-by-wire meant that a sturdy cable was lifting slides in carburetors that were feeding a splash of gasoline/air mixture to an air-cooled engine. Traction control was an attenuator located somewhere between our brains and our twist grips. Removing bodywork for maintenance involved loosening one screw for each side panel in order to access a battery, an air filter or the semi-real tool kits that were included with our machines.
Simple? Or, as Barbra further queried, “has time rewritten every line?” What were the motorcycle manufacturers offering back in 1974? Was “simple” even a good thing?
Enter the Suzuki GT 380L, a three-cylinder two-stroke street bike.
The two-stroke 1974 GT 380L had Suzuki’s new Ram Air System, which utilized a scoop to push air across its three-cylinders and behind the block while in motion.
A multi-cylinder two-stroke street bike is a fantastical, conceptual thought today, but back then the company believed in the configuration, so much so that the 380L was joined by a 550 and a liquid-cooled 750 on the Suzuki dealers’ showroom floors. Cycle News was serious about learning more about this unique machine and logged a full 1056 miles on a GT 380L for this test in its October 1st issue of 1974.
This particular road test had a rather inauspicious beginning. Before you could even say the words “expansion chamber,” the editor, apparently engaging in some sort of tomfoolery, had crashed the test bike. But the show must go on, even with tweaked bars and a pretzeled clutch lever. Broken turn signal? That’s what our left arm is for! Knee injury? Harumph! Let the ride begin.
The Suzuki seemed to have plenty of power, as the tester mentions passing cars, trucks, boats and even choppers (1974, ya know) with ease.
The middleweight machine thumbs its nose at OPEC with a thrifty 41 miles to the gallon. Plenty of power and the suspension is good, though the tester said there is one “…idiosyncrasy. The front wheel has a tendency to pump up and down in resonance with the engine at certain speeds, usually around 45 mph, part throttle. Feels weird, but doesn’t make the bike do anything nasty.”
The GT 380L showed plenty of power, especially at around 5500 rpm and hitting 100 miles per hour is no problem. Sea level is 6000 feet below and the Suzuki’s stock jetting is burning just the right amount of fuel/air mixture throughout its range. A quick stop for some Chevron two-stroke oil for the CCI injection system and the ride continues into pending darkness.
No fancy media junkets for this moto-journalist! At the end of the day, he heads for a dirt road, looking for a soft place on the ground to throw down the sleeping bag where he can drift away under the stars: “[As] a deer coughs in the distance and squirrels chatter overhead,” said the CN journo, and man and machine become one with nature. Lights out.
In the morning, our test rider learns that his freshly-injured knee is now acting up and he will have to prop himself in odd fashion to somehow use his left leg for the right-side-mounted kickstart to bring the Suzuki to life. It isn’t really a 380cc kick; rather, it’s a booting of three 125 two-stroke singles. That’s an easy one, and our hero and the Suzuki are soon ring-dinging their way down the highway.
Cycle News test rider Lane Campbell rode the 1974 Suzuki GT 380L more than 1000 miles to see if it lived up to the “Gran Turismo” in its name. Read the original article HERE. Photo Lane Campbell/ Chuck Clayton
With an outside temp of nearly 100 degrees, the Suzuki needed some cooling help, which it would receive thanks to the company’s “Ram Air Cooling” design. Ram air cooling was brought about by a scoop of sorts, mounted to the top of the cylinder head, making the engine appear to be taking a big bite of air as it went down the road. It might’ve helped. It also might’ve kept hot air from escaping off the top of the head. Bottom line: no heat-related failure on this test!
The Suzuki’s performance was pleasing, though not remarkable enough to merit much in the way of superlatives. Reliability was a key segment of any road test back in the day and the 380L met the 1974 standards, as the chain stretched just a bit after 1000 miles and the spark plugs showed signs of needing to be swapped out for a new set. Overall, the motorcycle was comfortable and inspired confidence. The standards for good braking, however, have certainly changed, as the test rider lauds the Suzuki for coming to a halt with only three fingers on the front brake lever. A full four, he added, would “lock the front wheel straight up.” [Subscribers of Cycle News Magazine Archives can read the original article HERE]
Memories, crooned Ms. Streisand, may be beautiful, but she also adds this caveat: “What’s too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget.” Raise your hand if you recall how to set points on a motorcycle? Ready to replace spark plugs every 1500 miles? And what exactly was in that blue smoke that was puffing out of those two-stroke expansion chambers anyway?
The Suzuki GT 380L was a fun, inexpensive ($1295 MSRP) motorcycle, one which also brought along some niggling issues for the ride. Such a description applied to many simple machines of the time. Right or wrong, it was “the way we were.” CN
