Suzuki admit: B-King almost never made it

Suzuki has just revealed to MCN that the B-King was so radical it almost didn’t make it passed the prototype stage.

Speaking to MCN editor Marc Potter at the launch in Germany, they admitted that despite the fantastic reaction when the bike was unveiled at the 2001 Tokyo motor show and shown to the public at the MCN Ally Pally show in the same year.

Designers and test riders feared they could never produce such a powerful naked bike for the road.

Test riders first rode a naked Hayabusa but the bike was just too savage to be let loose on the general public.

Designers then watered down the concept with a pre-production bike that was shown to other Suzuki personnel behind closed doors but the reaction was poor and the firm realised they had to produce the world’s most powerful naked bike after all.

Asked why Suzuki ditched the supercharger originally seen on the first concept bike, the B-King’s chief test rider replied “I think that 181bhp on this bike is more than enough for me and most people, and we will find we definitely do not need a supercharger”.

We’ll bring exclusive video and pictures plus all the first-time-out notes of the bike being tested at the Lausitzring circuit tomorrow morning.

MCN will be the first people outside the factory test team to ride the bike, we have been assigned bike number one in group A to make sure we bring you the very first riding impressions before anyone else.