A three-year wonder (wait, that didn’t rhyme), Suzuki’s innovative, stylish, quirky, sleek, somewhat space-age rotary-powered 500-cc bike wasn’t a big seller, and it’s rare to see today. This 1974 Suzuki RE5 is listed on Facebook Marketplace in Canada’s beautiful capital city, Ottawa, Ontario, and the seller is asking $5,500 Canadian dollars, or $3,858 U.S. dollars. Here is the original listing, and thanks to TomV for the tip!
If you were alive in the early 1970s, you most likely owned a motorcycle or knew someone who did. In my opinion, it was the golden era for outdoor recreation. Motorcycles, snowmobiles, skiing (where rustic ski lodges had vertical signs), and all sorts of fun things were going on. As always, there were not-fun things going on, as there always are, but a lot of us were just in our own world and were looking for a way to get outside and enjoy a gas-powered vehicle. As weird as that sounds, getting outside for some fresh air while driving a smoking motorcycle or snowmobile. I can smell it now, and I miss it if I go too long without breathing it in.
The 1974, 1975, and 1976 Suzuki RE5, or RE-5, had some killer details, thanks to Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro. His accomplishments make me feel sad about what I’ve accomplished, even though I’ve had a good life and done a thing or two. You can see the unique taillight housing, and a similar “tin can” shape is in front as well, for the gauges, with a cool sliding cover. Suzuki clearly was thinking way outside the box on this one. A mostly regular motorcycle-looking bike, but with some unusual design features, plus a rotary engine? I like it. The 1974 models came in blue, silver, and this reddish-orange color.
Speaking of outside the box, the 497-cc single-rotor Wankel-type rotary engine was unique, to say the least. It wasn’t the first time a rotary engine powered a motorcycle, but nobody knew what the future would be, as we don’t know now, so manufacturers were trying anything and everything. With 62 horsepower and 55 lb-ft of torque, backed by a 5-speed manual transmission, this bike wasn’t a powerhouse; the RE5 can be a bit rough at higher speeds but is usually quite smooth at lower speeds. This one is incredibly smooth, as it isn’t currently in running condition. Do you have what it takes to get this rotary bike back on the road again?
Terrific find, Tony V.!
Really cool bit of motorcycle history, SG.
With everyone at the time jumping into the rotary engine idea, Suzuki beat everyone to the punch in the Asian bike field of the time but suffered the same shortcomings in metallurgy (rotor seals particularly) and heat (radiator and double walled exhaust pipes). Add the additional cost for all that to the perceived poor fuel economy with it being a completely new/crazy concept for most riders of the time-as was the Hercules W2000 which preceded it-the bike really didn’t have the timing to succeed as they hoped.
When Norton came along with their rotary race bike it did very well but was banned later: many race officials didn’t like it because it wasn’t a traditional look or sound plus they couldn’t find a definitive and acceptable formula for engine displacement!
Norton then used them to made great cop bikes IIRC..
These Suzukis and the rest of the rotary bikes have a limited but very eclectic and focused following. This one is pretty decent considering the vintage and should bring about what the sellers asking.
Hey Nevada, I think you mean Tom V..
Yep. Thanks, Tony P.
Tony Primo, in Nevadahalfracks defense….. You do find a lot of great stuff!!!
I’d say the fair formula for calculating displacement in a Wankel RCE, for each Rotor, is volume of one chamber x 2..
Suzuki RE-5 had the NSU Ro-80/ Comotor Rotor; apex seals in ferrotic, side seals in IKA, and the working surface in housing with a coating patented by Alfred P Grazen in Canada.
Mazda used hard chrome, NSU coat was nikasil, that in the end could prove beign the best.
In Europe, you can have motorcycle and car cylinders plated with nikasil for arround 100 € each cylinder, but when they hear the term ‘Wankel’, these repair shops enter in panic.
Hercules W-2000 production ceased when they went short of the profitability threshold by 27 motorcycles a month
Yamaha had also produced one in 1973 that was water cooled….don’t think it became a superbike.
Yamaha Wankel was just a prototype
You meet the nicest people on a Suzuki.
I thought they rode Hondas.
On our autocross Honda Civic in 1974. Above the door it said ” We beat the nicest people with our Honda”
That’s a kick in the head for me – my dad had one of these back in the day we owned 3 Mazda stores & for some reason he bought this motorcycle-never hardly drove it – later my cousin spent the summer he painted the house & my dad gave him the motorcycle as part payment.
Never seen it again.
Early RE5s had that flip-tom gauge assembly; later ones had a more universal set of clocks. Never ridden one, but rotary engines are something else.
The Norton was a twin-rotor and fitted into the 1000cc racing class (600-odd cc and a multiplier). Steve Hislop won a TT on one – the first Norton to win one in many years.
You’re right, sir, thanks for mentioning that.
While working out a deal on an ’80 Suzuki 550-4ET,the dealer
told about his son’s RE5.Since he lived across the street from the
dealership,I walked over & he showed it to me.
I thought it was a cool bike.
Now stop the pining, that’s my dept., you’ve backed up more miles than most drove forward, ( except me, but he’s catching me), and in my case, you’ve forgotten more than I know.
A little additional background on Suzuki motorcycles. Suzuki was the last to milk the 2 strokes for a road bike. The “Water Buffalo”( GT750) was their crowning 2 stroke achievement, and a great bike, if you didn’t mind that smoky smell when you got somewhere. I miss that too. Before the GS750, Suzuki tried anything to keep from going the 4 stroke route, and the rotary was just such a deal and possibly a stop gap until the GS came out in ’76. We all knew this rotary mumbo jumbo wouldn’t fly, and it didn’t, at least in the small engine market. I heard these were incredibly smooth, and more powerful than most 500s, if it ran, that is. Many of these are low mileage for good reason. This one has only 18,000 miles before she quit. Suzuki went on to such great heights, #1 in drag racing, but this wasn’t one of them. Cool find.
A guy at work had a 500 2 stroke Suzuki. It was a beast. I never saw a rotary on a bike.
Good memory! Suzuki made several 2 stroke bikes-including a single cylinder 500cc 2 stroke dirt bike! As scary to ride as my brothers Kawi KX500..
The pinnacle for Suzuki though was the water cooled RG500 Gamma, the one homologated for F1. It was a handful inasmuch as their RM500 was in its own way.
Crazy fast. EPA aside, the IIHS would lose their mind if anything like any of those were sold as street bikes today.
A friend who worked as a technician in a Mazda dealer back in the 70’s told me about one of the tech’s who worked there and was quite taken with the Wankel rotary engine and had to have one of the RE5’s. That technician rode it to work nearly every day, weather permitting, and in my friends recollection, that technician seemed to need to work on the bike almost every day. They had a very complex dual carb induction system that needed constant fettling.
Bottom line, the simplicity of the Wankel rotary was very appealing along with a very good power to weight ratio. The downside? Abysmal thermal efficiency, which explains the poor fuel economy. In other words, the job of an internal combustion engine is the conversion of heat energy into mechanical motion. Those fresh air inlets, (two of them for a 1 rotor engine) down at the bottom of the forward part of the exhaust system are needed to keep the two mufflers from getting excessively hot. That’s wasted heat. The combustion chambers of a rotary are long and very thin so combustion is very slow, so a lot of unburned fuel exits the engine and finishes burning in the exhaust. So between the poor fuel economy and the expense of hardware needed to clean up the emissions, the Wankel’s days were numbered.
I had a new GT750 in 1974. The owner of St Peter’s Suzuki was a great guy and wanted me to trade my Water Buffalo for one of those. He told me to take for a good long ride, which I did. It was smooth, and he offered me a good deal, but I liked the Water Buffalo. Pretty unique bike and very rare today.
Both are! Would probably chose that Water Buffalo even today