5 Things You Don’t Know About Hayabusa

Only few sport bikes in the history of automobiles have carved a place like Hayabusa. Debuted in the year 1999, this ultimate riding machine leveled other players on the playing field and became one of the most breathtaking performers in the world. Hayabusa is a Japanese “peregrine falcon”, which is a bird that often serves as a metaphor for speed due to its vertical hunting dive, having a speed of 290 to 325 kmph, the fastest in any bird.



The bike was brought by the Suzuki to unseat the Honda’s CBR 1100XX Blackbird, which was the fastest production motorcycle during that time. With its big 1340cc four cylinder, 16 valves engine, it generates the power output of 197bhp at 9,500rpm with the maximum torque of 155Nm at 7,200rpm. The engine features Suzuki’s SDTV (Suzuki Dual throttle Valve) fuel injection system with dual 12-hole and fine-spray injectors per cylinder and a ram air intake with large volume air box. The power of the engine is controlled by its six-speed transmission.

This power booster superbike is built on a light yet extremely rigid twin-spar aluminium frame, which is combined with a set of sporty suspensions that offers fully adjustable inverted front fork and a rear link type, coil spring and oil damped suspension.

That’s not enough, the bike has so many unknown things, which most of the people are unaware of. Let’s find out the 5 things you don’t know about the Suzuki’s Big Giant Machine “Hayabusa”.

1. Amongst the Fastest Production Motorcycle: With its launch itself, it immediately won the world’s fastest production superbike with a top speed of 303 to 312 kmph. After winning the title, it had face many issues like the fear of European regulatory backlash or an import ban, which lead to an informal agreement among the Japanese and European manufacturers to govern the top speed at an arbitrary limit.

Even though after the limitation was accepted, Hayabusa did not lose its title, at least technically. After launch of highly anticipated Kawasaki Ninja ZX-12R, people thought it could win against the speed of Hayabusa, but it fell 6kmph short of claiming the title, hence Hayabusa secured its place as the fastest production motorcycle of 20th century.

2. Police use for Highway Patrolling: In the year 2006, the government of Oklahoma converted Hayabusa into a pursuit vehicle. They set the bike with a radar unit, police lights and siren and painted it in official colour and insignia.

Due to its impressive speed and the positive response from the public and motorcycle community, the Oklahoma government bought two more Hayabusas to add them in their main fleet of Harley-Davidson Police Motorcycle. Following the footstep of OHP (Oklahoma Highway Patrol), the Humberside Police of UK put and undercover Hayabusa on road to catch speeding motorists in the year 2009.

3. Its engine is used in cars as well: The Highly-powered and lightweight engine of Hayabusa lended itself in non-motorcycle applications as well. The British made Lotus Seven inspired Westfield Megabusa uses the engine of Hayabusa.



Suzuki was the first company to place motorcycle’s engine in a car. In the year 2001, the company used the engine of Hayabusa in two of their concept cars, suzuki GSX-R/4 and the Formula Hayabusa, which was an open wheel race car “designed for new Japanese one-make competition series”. Even in the Bugatti Model 100 replica project by Scotty Wilson and John Lawson, they have used twin Suzuki Hayabusa mills to power the replica aircraft.

4. Favourite Motorcycle of Ghost Rider (Motorcyclist): Ghost Rider is Swedish motorcycle stunter, who is “probably the most famous flaunter of road rules, the world has ever seen”. His youtube videos have achieved a cult following with million of views. He Extensively uses Suzuki Hayabusa and GSX R1000 for the movies.  



Swedish rock band Europe has used various clips from the Ghost Rider movies in their music video of the song “Got to have faith” from their album “Start from the Dark” in the year 2004.

5. One of the Fastest Accelerating Machines Ever Built: Even after more than 15 years of its inception, Suzuki Hayabusa is still one of the fastest accelerating motorcycles ever built. This superbike takes 2.74 seconds to reach the mark of 0-100 kmph and ranked at 11 position.



Besides speed, Hayabusa is lauded by many reviewers for its all-round performance, without compromising on handling, comfort, reliability, noise and fuel economy. According to the Jay Koblenz of Motorcycle consumer news “If you think the ability of a motorcycle to approach 190 mph or reach the quarter mile in under 10 seconds is at best frivolous and at worst offensive, this still remains a motorcycle worthy of just consideration. Hayabusa is speed in all its glory. But speed is not all Hayabusa is.”