My New GS1000

[Brendan W]

I saw this here a few years back. The owner looks to have drilled the disks to improve braking ??
Sorry but the pic stays upside down no matter what I do

DSC_0054.jpg

[zuluwiz]

Oddly enough, Suzuki started drilling the discs just for the appearance. They said at the time they didn't expect any braking improvement, the holes were just there to look cool.

[Big T]

This one appears to have the chromed steel wheels, not the wheels with alu rims these bikes used to have.

Useless fun fact about those alu rim spoke wheels : Suzuki only used those for the first 6 months in 1978,
because after the introduction of the GS1000 in 1977 on the Autosalon in Paris, France the order volume
was much higher than expected and production of the cast wheels was not up to speed yet.

Um, no

I have the identical 78 with the aluminum rims
Sandy has a 79 with the same wheels

[Rijko]

For the first 6 months of production this was the reason as far as i know.

If you have the same wheels on your '78, how does that dismiss that ?
The fact Sandy has them in a '79 could be special order or a front fork/wheel swap.

Or Suzuki used some old leftovers like they did on many of their bikes.

It seems these wheels have been used on some Australian
GS1000S bikes - but i have not been able to confirm that in
the Suzuki parts lists books in the 'Special Markets' section.

I would love some more info - from parts lists, brochures, magazine articles,
other sources, whatever you have.

But "Um, no" .... is not much to go on ...

[Rijko]

So i checked - these rims were in fact used on several later models.
Partzilla and some other sources confirm this.

I stand corrected Big T.
Suzuki developed these wheels for the GS1000 but did use
them on other/later models.

[Big T]

Yep, 78 and 79 standard models 1000 only

[rphillips]

Very interesting topic I'd never heard before. I will say I never remember seeing a spoked model GS1000 with steel chrome wheels, nor do I remember seeing the alum. rims on other GS models.