Suter 500 'could match MotoGP times'
UPDATE: Australian stars Chris Vermeulen, Troy Bayliss and Casey Stoner all express interest in the Suter 500 two-stroke! See tweets below...
Eskil Suter claims his company's MMX 500 two-stro🐷ke would be around tenth place, with the right rider, if it went up against the current grid of MotoGP machines.
Rule changes saw four-strokes enter the premier-class in 2002. The bigger capacity bikes soon dominated the results and filled the grid from the following year. But despite the outright performance and technical superiority o✃f the MotoGP prototypes, many still miss the purity of the extinct 500s.
Enter Eskil Suter, whose company has built chassis for all three of the current grand prix classes. The Swis🧸s ex-racer designed a modern version of the 500, featuring a 576cc V4 engine, producing 195hp at a weight of 127kg and estimated top speed of 310km/h (193mph).
The bike, which also boasts electronic fuel injection and counter-rotating crankshaft, is available to buy for 120,000 Euros. According to Suter, advances in technology mean it is probably quicker than the legendary machin🍒es it was built to imitate.
"What you get is pretty much a factory machine," Suter told mahbx.com. "20 years ago a machine like that 🤡could cost millions, it's all hand built of tit🌄anium, some parts hand cast and manually machined.
"It's a bespoke fact♔ory bike, in fact I believe that🍌 it's even faster than those GP two-strokes.
"It's got 195hp, but the friendly torque curve in combination with the modern chassis and tyres mꩵeans that if you put an experienced rider on it he could probably match MotoGP times, maybe P10.
"When I was riding it at Jerez I was only about 4.9 seconds off Rossi's 500 lap record and I'm 50 years old and 50kg too heavy. I think if you put Marquez on it ꦦhe'd do a 1m 39, but I'm sure that Honda wouldn't allow that..."
Rossi's 2001 500cc lap record was a 1m 42.421s lap, while a low 1m 39s would have been good enough for ninth on the grid atꦦ the recent Spanish MotoGP.
"It's a really beautiful bike," said Suter, explaining the background to the machine, which also competed in last year's Isle of Man TT. "In 2010 we were sitting arou☂nd wondering which direction to go in and I still had quite a lot of two-stroke technology from my racing career lying around. We had a chassis and all the bits and pieces and really all we had to do was to make an𒆙 engine.
"It was just small t⛄alk from the caf?, we wanted to do some🍌thing fun which wasn't necessarily connected to the daily business.
"I thought it was a shame that a bike like that had never been made commercially available, you could only get them produced by racing fact🐷ories from Japan and if you can't buy one you've got to make it.
"The two-stroke 500s were special and we knew there was a big community of fans for them - including us. We saw that projects like the Ducati Des🤪mosedici had done well, they sold all of them despite the fact that it cost 100,000 Euros, so we felt it wasn't a crazy thing to do.
"There is a market for them and we produce them to order. Believe me, they are a hell ofꦺ a lot o🧔f fun to ride.
"We actually went for a displacement of 580cc just to get a more friendly torqu꧟e curve. We needed to fill out that 500cc two-stroke torque hole that you get at about 8,000 or 9,000rpm and now the torque curve is beautifully flat and it's great to ride.
"It's still wild but it's really useable and you can just pull it straight through from 500rpm... [We've sold] around 20 or so but i♚t's ongoing and we're preparing the next batch."
Suter is hoping to return to the TT with the MMX 🥀500 in 2018.
T🍒hat sounds like fun to ride!ꩲ -- Chris Vermeulen (@chrisvermeulen7)
want need-- Baylisstic 21 (@TroyBaylisstic)
We should g♛et a couple TB and go for a spin! -- Chris Vermeulen (@chrisvermeulen7)
Hmmmm🌸 I do love 2-strokes!-- Casey Stoner (@Official_CS27)
Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years꧟ and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
