The Suzuki GT250 was bought new in April 1975 for the sum of £360.

A twin cylinder 2 stroke 'screamer', it was generally acknowledged to be the boy-racer bike then - at least for a while - because that was the era of the stroker wars. Three of the big Japanese four; Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki battled it out with incremental power and speed tweaks on their lightweight machines. The players were: Kawasaki's KH250s and 400s, Yamaha's RD250s and 350s (later 400s) and Suzuki with its GT250s and 380s. Both Suzuki and Kawasaki also had heavyweight two-strokes on the market, some of which were quite lethal, apart from being ecologically disastrous. There was a lot to play for in this field because then the 250cc was a learner bike and therefore sales were almost guaranteed if you were the producer of the "bike to have". Curiously, the fourth Jap' magnate, Honda, was not at this contest at all, still turning out 'sensible' and reliable four-strokes that were fine machines but not really competitive with the 2-strokes.

The GT250 could accelerate through the first 4 gears healthily into its redline whereupon the motor would produce a familiar high pitched wail, belching now unthinkable amounts of blue poison into the atmosphere. The only bikes that were less friends of the planet were bigger Suzukis! (Remember the 750 "kettle"?)

As well as being the era that gave us platform shoes (yuk!), the mid '70s was a time of great progress and change in the motorcycle industry and the GT250 was a bike with all the hallmarks of a transient model. It was a strange blend of the innovative and the obsolete. It was among the first light/middleweights to have a disc brake and about the last to have gaiters on the forks. It was also saw the end of Suzuki's Ram Air cooling system, which didn't last very long.

Build quality was excellent. The chrome and alloy resisted corrosion much better than those used today. Most of this bike was metal. Curiously the Japanese strove to produce more and more power from the engines in the pursuit of top-end speed but didn't seem to consider making the bikes lighter by introducing plastic parts. It took another ten years or so for that penny to drop when a new breed of bikes such as the Suzuki X7 emerged.