A Look Back at the 2-Stroke Race Quads of Suzuki

Suzuki never had to transition to four wheels with the crowd.

Unlike Yamaha, Honda and Kawasaki, Suzuki never offered a 250cc track-ready 3-wheeler. In fact, the company pretty much skipped over the 3-wheeler thing altogether (we say almost because they did offer a 125 and 185cc trike way back in 1983).

Suzuki Quadracer LT250R

In any event, by the mid 80s, off-road racetracks around the world witnessed banging bars of Honda 250Rs, Yamaha Tri-Zs and Kawasaki Tecate 3s but Suzuki, in a move that would prove very forward thinking when the manufacture and sale of all 3-wheelers would become illegal in 1988, entered the race scene in 1985 with their LT250R Quadracer.

Amazingly, this, the first official factory race quad came configured nearly identically as sport and race quads do to this very day (with the only major expectation being the now extinct 2-stroke engine powering the Quadracer). Otherwise it boasted a solid axle, chain driven rear drive platform, fully manual transmission with manual clutch at the bar, long-travel A-arm suspension up front and hydraulic disc brakes front and rear.

The Suzuki 250R enjoyed a very successful run from 1985 – 1992, seeing mostly minor revisions along the way, the greatest of these coming in 1987 when a powervalve was added to the engine, many chassis components beefed up, front shocks gained 3″ of travel and so on.

Yamaha bailed on the 250cc race class when 3-wheelers were banned and while Kawasaki made the transition to four wheels with the Tecate-4, Suzuki holds second place behind Honda and the legendary 250R as the most popular race quad on the track at the time.

Suzuki Quadzilla LT500R

If bigger meant better, Suzuki wasn’t taking any chances. Built upon the 250’s chassis, Suzuki imported its lethal open-class 500cc RM engine into what would become known as the Quadzilla from 1987 – 1990.

Like the 250, it enjoyed a bevy of updates throughout its run, owning open class competition at the time as, aside from Yamaha’s 350cc Banshee, there was really no other competition. Still considered to be the most lethal production ATV of all time, Quadzillas have a reputation that keeps them highly desirable by collectors even to this day.