Rotary Owners Seminar in Newport Beach, Ca.and others 1975

[timpa136]

Along with our bikes celebrating their 40th., I was reminiscing on that special event for new owners. First of all, anyone able to attend in your state?

I remember all of us there, getting such royal treatment including an overnight stay in an upscale resort motel on the Beach. I remember being fed delicious meals, having Japanese engineers going over our bikes and topping off the oils while we were in a question and answer survey inside. We were reimbursed for gas and mileage from home. I remember a group ride up around saddleback on the famous Ortega Hwy.
Our bikes were locked up safely in a special area overnight.

This was truly an exciting era.

Tim

[wayne]

I've never heard of these Tim.

Suzuki invited all new owners did they ?

[timpa136]

Wayne,
The date was shortly after I purchased mine in February, sometime in March of 1975, Owners were contacted and invited by Suzuki. I estimate 20

to 25 mostly couples either married or a date relationship. The evening ride on Ortega Hwy. included a ride out to a spot where one owner was member of an astronomy club for a starry view!

I remember the factory asking how we lubed our then non o-ring chains and in hind sight am pretty sure they listened to us.

[jm0406]

I remember Orange County Suzuki putting on rides where the dealer representative would ride along with a group of 10 or 12 people and then switch off at intervals so everyone could take a turn riding the new rotary. I was working the parts counter at House of Suzuki in Fountain Valley at that time, two stroke versus four stroke versus rotary ideas. What a radical change Suzuki made in their lineup after the rotary failed to take off.
Jeff

[wayne]

That's remarkable. They really spared no expense. I remember the tests where they used Citation jets to fly journalists around to wherever the last lot finished their test ride. Then the next lot flown another couple of hundred miles to pick up their bikes.

In hindsight of course, just another 6 months to a year of real life testing would have highlighted so many of the minor issues which blew up to be sales killers. In the end though, as Mazda has shown us, an interesting but ill fated engineering/marketing path, at least when running on gasoline.

[timpa136]

Last call for members present, I'm likely to post pictures. You have been forewarned. Tim

[jm0406]

No naked pics of Tim please.
Jeff

[timpa136]

And this is my baby with A suzuki engineer, a chassis specialist if memory serves me well

[wayne]

Your baby looks so new.

At least that Chassis engineer can walk away with his head held high for a job well done. They got one thing right.

[timpa136]

someone had 92 on their tank, just a guess now, RE510092?

[wayne]

Tim, in the very first picture you've put up, there's a blue rotary in the top right corner with a factory fairing. But not with bags that I recognise. Were these owner fitted or another version of the bags from Suzuki ?

I also see that they use the short stalks on their front blinkers when mounting the fairing. Much neater than simply transferring the long stalked standard blinkers across.

For fans of the tour kit (I believe there are two of us), it's interesting to see that they were available from the get go. Sam once mentioned that at one of the launch events, long before deliveries started, a fully kitted out "Tour King" was on display. I didn't see any mention of a tour kit in a magazine 'til '76 and that seemed to indicate it was a "beta test" for a future release.

[timpa136]

Mar 4, 2015 20:44:14 GMT -5 wayne said:

That's remarkable. They really spared no expense. I remember the tests where they used Citation jets to fly journalists around to wherever the last lot finished their test ride. Then the next lot flown another couple of hundred miles to pick up their bikes.

In hindsight of course, just another 6 months to a year of real life testing would have highlighted so many of the minor issues which blew up to be sales killers. In the end though, as Mazda has shown us, an interesting but ill fated engineering/marketing path, at least when running on gasoline.

Another 6 months, maybe so Wayne.

As I recall the time, there was extreme secrecy of the rotary project and I am only guessing, Suzuki would like to get ahead of Yamahas project.

I was privileged to be near the hub of activities and at one point a major "go-to" source said that they figured Suzuki would never put as much into
pre production testing. We have an area below sea level in the desert with extreme temperatures which begs for extremely harsh testing both hot and cold.

Even as late as service school before introduction to address the throttle wind up of the metering pump, the instructor joking shrugged his shoulders and said
just wind up the throttle and get a second grip on it.

Tim

[wayne]

I read once that at least one Japanese manufacturer, perhaps in the '60's, measured the size of hundreds of Caucasion hands to find a handlebar diameter for their bikes that would better suit the broader market. Now that's attention to detail.

Yamaha probably achieved more than they intended, pushing Suzuki into ignoring fine (and not so fine) details which all assisted in the ultimate failure.

Mind you, Yamaha had a complete fail with the TX750, an existing technology and thus pretty inexcusable.

[jm0406]

Tim will probably remember better, but I think the blue bags were made by Bates.
The Yamaha 750, oil would leak out as fast as we could pour it in on the first ones.
Jeff

[wayne]

Having said that, check out what's in my spare room. Apparently they're alright once you sort the oil problem out.

Not mine, a gorgeous restoration, colour is distorted by camera and flash. A favour for a friend. He once owned a Suzuki dealership and sold RE5s (well, tried to he tells me). I felt sorry for him and agreed to house his TX for a few months while he moves house.

If you look at the styling of the whole bike, you can clearly see the RZ rotary came from the same design department.