Something a bit different for this blog. A spot on a recent holiday in France at the lovely seaside town of Pornic was this Suzuki XN85. A child of the eighties vogue for turbo charged bikes the XN85 is a noticably rare bike with only 1153 examples being made. The XN85 monicker comes from the fact that it produces, yes, 85bhp - a very respectable figure for a 650 particularly in the eighties though it needs to be said that those horses were crankshaft ones rather than rear wheel.
The XN85 has the reputation of being one of the more managable turbo bikes of the era. The reasons being the fine handling and the fact that the turbo boost was mildly strangled. The XN85 is credited with being the first production bike with a 16 inch front wheel - this is plainly nonsense (Harley WL to name just one), perhaps what is meant is that it was the first bike of the eighties fashion for tiny front wheeled sports bikes. A trend that was thankfully fairly short lived.
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