We’ve been digging around and even after checking under the cushions on the sofa we’re still about £29, 945 short of the asking price for this amazing Suzuki RG500 Gamma. There can’t be too many unregistered and unused examples left…
Keith Dickinson is a 45 year-old Scientist, and part-time petrol head, who has always serviced and repairing his own bikes and cars. “I’ve had a bike of some sort on the road ever since I was 16 years old and have restored and rebuilt several bikes over the years – as well a Triumph Spitfire which succeeded in putting me off car restoration for life.
You cannot have visited a major bike show in the UK over the last few years without seeing Pete Tantrum and his RG500. The bike is beautifully painted in the same DAF trucks livery as the one that Barry Sheene last rode with, the bike looks stunning and stands out from the crowd wherever it may be parked.
It began life as a red and black RG and from the moment Pete acquired the bike the end result was clear in his mind, if not quite every one else’s. When ever he mentioned a Barry Sheene replica most people immediately thought of the red and yellow Heron machine upon which Barry romped to his two world titles in 1976 and 77 but not Pete, for him the tribute to this great man would take the form of the final year that Sheene rode in GP’s.
In 1984, a Yamaha advert quite boldly stated “ No one has ever built a road machine so close in technical basis to a current GP winner. Quite frankly we do not expect that any one else ever will”. How…
What happens when the imagination is left to run wild? The result is a machine like this RGV500, a 1994 RGV250 alloy chassis, wrapped quite tightly around a four cylinder V4, it fits, it works and above all it goes like stink.
