10 Motorcycles That Shaped The Modern Sport Bike

Speed has been an obsession ever since the first motorcycle was built

Common motorcycle lore has it that the first motorcycle race happened when the second motorcycle was built, sparking an obsession with speed and going ever faster that remains to this day, whether on road or track.

In the early days, there was no such thing as a ‘sport bike’ as we know it today, and even the road-burners of the 60s and early 70s were not necessarily referred to as ‘sport bikes’. Into the 1980s and early ’90s, however, the sport bike took on a new significance as the Japanese really ramped up the competitiveness in the marketplace and speed was the one thing that really sold. The sport bike had come of age, but that's not to say that what had gone before hadn't paved the way.

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George Brough not only built exquisitely engineered motorcycles (not for nothing were they dubbed the Rolls-Royce of Motorcycles), he also built fast motorcycles. They were extremely expensive - the equivalent of the annual wage of a working man in the period - and were therefore not a common sight on the roads of the UK: in 21 years of production, only 3,048 motorcycles were built. The fastest of them all was the SS100 of 1924 - 1940, which came with a certificate guaranteeing that the motorcycle in question had achieved 100mph in testing. It was powered by a 1,000cc V-Twin engine, either from J.A.P or Matchless and would run rings around any other ‘hot’ motorcycle of the day. T.E.Lawrence (the real Lawrence of Arabia), owned eight SS100s, but was killed on the seventh while the eighth was being built.

Where George Brough led, Philip Vincent followed. He started by buying bankrupt motorcycle manufacturer H.R.D. in 1928, after building a motorcycle of his own design in 1927. The first Vincents were called Vincent H.R.D. and it was only later, in 1950, that the "H.R.D." was dropped. Engineer Phil Irving designed a 500cc single cylinder engine and this was developed into the now-legendary Vincent V-Twin in 1936, when Irving happened to see two engineers’ drawings of the single cylinder engine lying on top of each other, creating a V-Twin. In 1948 Black Shadow form, the Series C Vincent's 998cc engine produced 55 horsepower, giving a top speed of 125mph, at the time the fastest production motorcycle in the world.

Triumphs had always been regarded as great performers, but in 1959, Triumph upped its game and produced the T120 Bonneville, the "120" referring to the top speed. To achieve this, Triumph added a second carburetor to the 650cc Tiger T110 and named the resulting bike the Bonneville, after Johnny Allen's record speed-setting attempt at the famous salt flats in 1955.

Throughout the 1960s, the Bonneville was the performance motorcycle, even if the term sport bike had not yet been coined. Unit construction of gearbox and engine arrived in 1963 and the vast majority of production headed for the U.S., where the Bonnie, as it became affectionately known, could run rings around home-grown Harleys, and any other British import, for that matter. Into the 1970s, the Bonneville's engine was enlarged to 750cc for more power and vibration, but by this time, the glory days of the British motorcycle industry were over, the Japanese arriving to show the way.

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And this was the motorcycle that started the revolution. The Japanese had come in with force during the 1960s, but always with small-displacement bikes. The CB750 changed all that. Four cylinders, electric start, smooth running, reliable, fast, no oil leaks, disc front brake, electrics that wouldn't strand you by the roadside: it was a total revolution that moved motorcycling forward by decades. The CB750 still wasn't called a sport bike though, and to be honest, it wasn't all that sporty, but in terms of its influence on motorcycle design, this was the bike that set the template that is still in force today.

All of a sudden, the concept of a ‘sports’ motorcycle started making an appearance. Ducati set the ball rolling with its road-legal version of the racing bike Paul Smart had ridden to victory in the Imola 200-mile race in 1972. The 750 Super Sport was powered by the company's new desmodromic-valved V-Twin (or L-Twin, if you prefer), which was mounted as a stressed member of the frame. It was a fine handling motorcycle, with twin front disc brakes and a racing fairing and racing riding position. This is the grandfather of the modern Ducati Panigale V4 and one could argue that, without this model, the likes of the 851, 916, 1098, 1099 and Panigale wouldn't exist: the 750 Super Sport put Ducati on the sport bike path from which it hasn't deviated since.

It might now be seen as more of a sports tourer as opposed to pure sport bike, but at the time, it was the most extreme Japanese motorcycle yet devised. What the GPZ900 did (quite apart from providing Tom Cruise with transport in the Top Gun movie) was further define the template of the modern Japanese sport bike by making the engine a liquid-cooled, double overhead camshaft, 16-valve unit: try finding a four-cylinder motorcycle engine today that has broken from that tradition! The GPZ900 set new standards of performance (150mph from 115 horsepower), handling - thanks to the strong and rigid frame - compactness, comfort and wind protection. Just as the Honda CB750 had done, the GPZ900 moved sport bike design forward by years. It took Kawasaki seven years to develop, and it stayed in production for 19 years: it was that good.

By the early 1990s, sport bike design was heading in the wrong direction, certainly for Honda. Its VFR750 was as much touring bike as sport bike and the CBR1000F was simply too heavy, with ponderous handling. Honda was in danger of being left behind by its Japanese rivals. But then a light went on in Honda's collective heads and the result simply blew the opposition away. The CBR900RR FireBlade had the performance of a 1000cc bike but in a 600cc package. The FireBlade was 74 pounds lighter than the Yamaha FZR1000 and its short wheelbase gave it razor sharp handling. It was blisteringly fast, not just on the straights but in the corners as well. The FireBlade was clearly the next generation of sport bikes and it was so good, it took Honda's Japanese rivals a clear five years to catch up.

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If one of the prerequisites of a sports bike is to be desirable, then the Ducati 916 simply has to be on this list. In looks alone, it is at the top of many enthusiasts’ lists of the best sport bikes but the 916 was also a brilliant sports motorcycle as well. Ducati was nowhere in the sport bike stakes in the early 1980s and then came the 851 of 1987, which won the World Superbike championship in 90, 91 and 92. The 916 was a development of the 851 but also completely new. Designed by Massimo Tamburini, the 916 was at once utterly beautiful and utterly dominant, it and its derivatives the 996 and 998 winning six WSBK titles and any red-blooded motorcyclist's heart at the same time. It influenced sports motorcycle design for years, with its single-sided swingarm and under seat exhaust, not to mention its slit-eyed headlight (all admittedly cribbed from the Honda NR750). In terms of European sport bikes, it had no equal, and it made the Japanese offerings look like mass-produced automatons with no soul whatsoever.

It may have taken Honda's Japanese rivals years to catch up, but this was only to their advantage, because when they did catch up, they eclipsed Honda in no uncertain terms. The Yamaha YZF-R1 appeared in 1998 and, with figures of 150 horsepower and 390 pounds dry weight, it took the concept pioneered by Honda to a new and unprecedented level. The engine was ultra-compact, which allowed the whole bike to be ultra-compact and the R1 was smaller even than some 600cc bikes! With the appearance of the Yamaha R1, war was well and truly declared in the sport bike class, a war that is still raging to this day, both on the road and on track in production-based racing.

If the Ducati 916 and its ancestors were the very definition of Italian flair and passion, then the BMW S1000RR was as cold and clinical as an operating theater. It didn't matter: it was an immediate hit and had the Japanese manufacturers scurrying back to the drawing board, realizing that the goal posts had been significantly widened. It was an odd decision by BMW: the liter superbike market was in significant decline, and added to that, BMW had never played in this market before.

All that was forgotten when the S1000RR arrived: it was, simply, a game changer: 195 horsepower and electronic rider aids in the form of traction control, which had never been offered on a sport bike to that point. Sure, it looked odd with its asymmetrical headlight treatment, but in one fell swoop, BMW re-wrote the rule book, even if it still hasn't made a significant impact on the racing world, its very reason for being.

Harry has been writing and talking about motorcycles for 15 years, although he's been riding them for 45 years! After a long career in music, he turned his hand to writing and television work, concentrating on his passion for all things petrol-powered. Harry has written for all major publications in South Africa, both print and digital and produced and presented his own TV show called, imaginatively, The Bike Show, for seven years. He held the position of editor of South Africa's largest circulation motorcycling magazine before devoting his time to freelance writing on motoring and motorcycling. Born and raised in England, he has lived in South Africa with his family since 2002. Harry has owned examples of Triumph, Norton, BSA, MV Agusta, Honda, BMW, Ducati, Harley Davidson, Kawasaki and Moto Morini motorcycles. He regrets selling all of them.