@@robertmenghini.Lambomad I bought one not long after i bought my '72 H2-750 looking for similar performance, i was very disappointed, but it did ride somewhat better !
My older brother had one, and he'd take me on rides in New Hampshire. Whenever he said, "Are you ready," I'd hold on to him really tight, and he'd open the throttle up! Wow what a powerband that bike had!
Hi, thanks for watching my video, I also have a CBX, see it in my channel, howether comparing bikes the Benelli is way better looking in my eyes. Video here…ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NbaOJ0PDvwY.htmlsi=ctquiZLXIhAiiY8q
I had one of these bikes exactly like the one in the picture in the late 60s here in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania USA it was a rotary valve twin, you could switch the shifter in the rear brake pedals from one side to the other in case you were accustomed to having your brake pedal and shifters on the opposite sides. It would start in any gear just by pulling the clutch in and kicking it. It would start without a battery. It had a 6 gallon gas tank. The bores of the cylinders were chromed for hardness.. The Bridgestone also had a dry clutch.. that had an advantage over a wet clutch, because it wasn’t spinning an oil causing drag on the system.. it had 19 inch wheels, front and rear. It had a seat with a suede like top to the seat cover so you didn’t slide around. . it was not the fastest, 2 Stroke St. bike then, the fastest was the Kawasaki avenger 350 SS, which also had a rotary valve twin engine.. I had both the A1 and the A7 Kawasaki rotary valve twins. One was a 250 cc, the other was a 350 cc… both of those Kawasaki‘s were also two stroke Rotary valve twins. I believe that today, if not for the longshoreman strike in the spring of I think it was 1967 or 1968, there would be a big five motorcycle companies from Japan and I believe it would be Honda, then, Bridgestone, Yamaha, Kawasaki, suzuki.. The Bridgestone was more advanced than the other two stroke makersz this machine came in two flavors, the GTR, which had the twin exhaust pipes one on each side, and it also had I think it was called the GTO, which had scrambler pipes, I think. I never saw one of them, but I think they had one like that.. it’s a pity that the longshoreman strike, put Bridgestone out of business because they were making the best bikes at that time. They also had smaller street bikes, and dual sport bikes… I remember there was a famous hill climb just outside Pittsburgh. Called Green Valley… they had a brand new hill that was shorter, but steeper. For the first few hours no one was making it up that hill. That was until someone on a Bridgestone 175 dual sport type bike, made it all the way up, beating many of the extended swingarm bikes with big engines. That little Bridgestone had stock everything except it had a knobby tire on the rear.. there was competition between the big four Japanese motorcycle companies. Then, that was the beginning of motorcycle sales, going straight up like a rocket ship. They were good quality, and they were cheap. Through the 70s and the beginning of the 80s, we went from kickstart, two strokes, two turbo charge, fuel injected water cooled machines in a very short period. Of course, that all came crashing down when Ronald Reagan applied a 45% tariff to imported motorcycles from England, Germany, Italy, and Japan, at the request of Harley Davidson, that claimed the Japanese were dumping motorcycles here to drive Harley out of business. I was there then, nobody cared about Harley sales. I never even considered buying one back in those days, and neither did the dozens and dozens of buddies I had that were into Japanese motorcycles. but that tariff of 1984/85 completely changed the motorcycle business in the United States forever. Here now 40 years later, it is still not recovered. There used to be 22 Japanese motorcycle dealerships within an hour of my home. I worked in three of them as a full-time mechanic in the early 70s, and later, I worked as a salesman part time February through May for 17 years. That was until the Harley tariff On imported motorcycles, crushed the business. In the first two years, over 1100 Japanese dealerships in the United States, went out of business. The average number of employees at those 1100 shops was seven. Harley claimed they needed to save the 600 jobs at the Harley factory. Well, what about the more than 7000 American jobs that were lost due to the tariff just in the first two years? A bit of irony has gone full circle. Harley wanted to eliminate the competition so they got the president to put a tariff on imported motorcycles.. What they did was eliminated for generations of motorcycle, and Thusi asked that never got into the sport. Harley riders don’t start out on Harleys, they start out on Japanese smaller, cheap motorcycles and then they move up to a Harley. Well, they eliminated their future customers with that turf and today with her sales down more than 40% here in 2024, the tariff has come back to bite Harley in the ass. I realize that not all the people that never got started in motorcycling because of the price of motorcycles after the turf. I realize that not all of them would have moved up to a Harley someday. Probably only a few hundred thousand of them would have moved over to Harleys by now
Wow, I fogot about this Zook. I had only remembered the 500 twin, and the rotary job. Only now I remember Zook had a whole line of triples, like Saki had. Thx for the old memories.
I had the AP50 in red & the GT50 in black. £175 for the AP50 back in 1978 & £400 for the GT250 in 1979. Probably £12-15k for both now - they were immaculate.
how do you get a matching set of keys / locks currently i have same key for ignition and steering lock but petrol cap and seat is different key. would love it to be all the same
Nice bike, Had a teacher in HS that had one. After I graduated I bought a new 77 GS550, all the controls look the same. It was a 4cyl. 4 stroke, but this 380 inspired my purchase. Owned it for 45+ yrs., the charging system on these old Suzuki's were a pain, but great bikes overall.
My mate had one of these back in 1974 ; it was a lovely little bike. It looked sophisticated back then, especially compared to my SS50. Yours is a little cracker.
