At the beginning of the roaring seventies two motorcycles were dominating the Japanese four-cylinder performance market, the Honda CB750 and of course the Kawasaki Z1/Z900. However, Suzuki had only the GT750 three-cylinder two-stroke and soon realised they also needed a ‘big’ four-cylinder four-stroke to keep in contention. They did release the RE-5 rotary bike in 1975 but that failed and nearly sunk the company due to massive development costs.

If there’s one bike that shocked the world of motorcycling it has to be the advent of the incredible (in 1984) Kawasaki GPz 900R, or ZX900A in the US, or Ninja 900 as it was renamed at a later date. Kawasaki released their ‘Ninja Bomb’ onto the showroom floors early 1984 and everything changed overnight.

Put your hand up if you want this in your garage? Well that makes 6,349 of you and myself. Gorgeous little 350 Yamaha from 1969, unrestored and totally original makes this motorcycle more desirable than a night with half the South African national netball team after taking a box of Viagra derivatives – well maybe?

What ever happened to the 50cc motorcycle class? Well for one reason or another they seem to have been lost in the sands of time but now there’s a huge revival of the feisty little teenage drool machine in South Africa, which is more than refreshing to behold.