2025 Suzuki GSX-8TT | Did Suzuki miss the mark? | MCN Review

Welcome to Motorcycle News, we're here in Slovenia testing the new Suzuki GSX-8TT and the GSX-8 single T. These are two new retros from Suzuki based on the GSX-8S middleweight naked platform but with a bit of a retro bent. So everything from the waist down is a familiar package, there's no real changes there, engine, suspension, brakes, all that stuff. But on top obviously we've got new bodywork and a few other little tweaks as well which we'll get into. First I'm going to go find my helmet and then we're going to go out for a ride. The bike I'm on now is the double T, so you get this little bikini fairing, a little belly pan as well which obviously you can't see from where I'm sitting, and a slightly different seat as well, a slightly more racier cover. And it's slightly lower actually, 5mm lower at 810mm, but both share the same architecture which actually comes from the GSX-8S middleweight naked which was MCN's 2023 naked of the year. And for good reason, every time I ride with this 800cc parallel twin family from Suzuki I'm always surprised at just how punchy they are, you kind of forget a little bit because they claim 82hp at the crank, translate to mid-70s at the tyre which doesn't sound a lot but it's quite a long stroke engine and it makes all its go between three grand and sort of maybe seven or so, and that's what you're always in and out of, that nice fat bit of torque on the road in reality. So while it isn't revved like the Hornet's M50, it's a really fun, pleasurable and quite potent, poky little engine for what it is, and that's why we kind of, that was the main reason we gave it the award, but also the chassis as well, it's sort of a relatively long wheelbase but the suspension's quite firm and it steers really nicely, it's quite confident despite, even though it comes on fairly average tyres, they've done up road sports and this is very much more of the same. So in this kind of capacity as a retro that you might want to do a bit of cruising on and perhaps not treat quite as aggressively as a naked, it makes arguably even more sense I would say because it just suits, as I am now, just kind of pottering along enjoying this scenery, I mean look at that, I mean the good thing about the 8S chassis is just how composed it is, I mean it's not quick steering but it is light steering so there's no real effort to do it, so I mean look, just swinging through these easy as you like, I'm not even shuffling around in the seat, I'm just pushing a bit of counter-steering and the benefit of having that long wheelbase compared to something like the Horner which is kind of much flightier and faster turning is that it just gives you so much confidence and I've got no idea where we are really, I've sort of broken off from the main group and I can quite easily get myself lost, so I've got no idea what's coming but I've kind of got the faith that I can go into a turn, I can hold on a bit of brakes and forks are nicely damped so there's no sort of pinging back, there's too little rebound and it doesn't sort of bury itself into the floor as soon as you touch the brakes and the shock's pretty decent too, probably the sort of weak part of the equation there is it does ping back a little bit more, it's kind of lacking a little bit of rebound and in all honesty these basic shock absorbers from any manufacturer really, after a couple of thousand miles they already started going off which is a bit of a shame but that's how they are and the shock's obviously easier to rectify than a set of forks, you'd be throwing expensive cuts and all sorts into trying to get that right, whereas I think these are okay to a point for a lot of riders, they're well out damped like I say, comfort factor is pretty good too, not really much to complain about there. So as I said while I was riding, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the way these bikes ride and in fact actually some of the little gripes I had with the GSX-8S and I mean the suspension was a little bit harsh when I first rode one, I think it's probably actually because today is so hot, the suspension's probably a little bit loose, the oil's a bit warm and things like that and it's just got that little bit more cush which the S didn't have when I first rode it but it's still really supportive and we've been on some really stunning roads here, I mean if you're looking for an alternative riding holiday to the usual France, Germany, things that we do from the UK, this is a good spot but this really handled those really twisty kind of constant switchbacks and long bends, all of it and unless you were really vicious on the brakes it didn't upset it at all so no qualms there and also the engine like we've said before, this thing really sort of punches beyond its spec sheet, 82 horsepower doesn't sound like a great deal but this thing has got such good torque in the middle, everything from about three and a half thousand rpm through to sort of seven or eight, it's really strong so you're just constantly rolling on in and out of that and really enjoying it and this feels like a much punchier bike, it feels like it's got more than 100 horsepower until the point where you do kind of start running out of puff because it's held back a little bit I guess but most of the time it's not a problem, it's kind of great up to 80-90 miles an hour if you've got space to do so. I'm not sure this is necessarily positioned correctly in the market, I mean for starters it's just short of £10,000 in the UK which is a whacking, at the moment it's two and a half thousand pounds more than the GSX-8 S is based on and it's got a few bits and pieces that are different, obviously there's the new fairings and a couple of other bits and pieces of development but it's not as if you're getting extra parts, you're not getting better forks, different shock or different brakes, the only kind of real mechanical change is a lithium-ion battery which helps cut weight down and slightly bigger too, your tank is 16.5 litres instead of 14 but other than that this is an 8S and it rides exactly like that which is a good thing broadly speaking but where does that extra money go? Suzuki said it's because they've made some nice finishes on this and yeah fair enough there's some nice badges and got these kind of sort of raised decals there things like that but I'm not convinced, I mean they claim things like the side cases and some of the little radiator cowls and things have got sort of more premium finishes to them but without really scrutinising them side by side and maybe testing the depth of the paint or something like that I don't think you'd really notice so yeah sounds like marketing spiel more than anything else so I had an original SV650 back in the day, naked one, carby one and this feels like a more grown-up modern version of that and that's a great thing but in this case it might all be for now if people don't think that this is worth £10,000 and personally I'm not feeling it but I'm not necessarily buying public for a bike like this so tell me what you think or tell us what you think and if you think it's worth it then drop it down in the comments maybe slightly cheaper single t I think by and large we're focusing on this bike because it's the slightly sexier of the two I think it's got a better executed I mean some unkind commenters have pointed out that it looks a bit like a cb650r something like that or even a certain cf motor I think is the 700clx yeah which is pretty damning when they're trying to align it with the early 70s t5 into titan two-stroke which again is a little bit of an odd thing to do but as I said on the ride my reservation with this is how Suzuki pitched it correctly now in the flesh this thing looks great and I actually quite like this paint but obviously they're harking back to the GS1000s it seems like an absolute kind of own goal to not do a Wes Cooley style blue and white or the the red with the white stripe that Yoshimura used as well and the same with this I mean this is kind of it's a nice color but it's a little bit flat it's a bit underwhelming and I think really to really capture that 70s vibe that they I mean they had a t500 in the presentation here and that's a beautiful metallic blue and again they've kind of not bothered to sort of continue that sort of model lineage and history through into this bike so I'm not sure why they've not done that that would really kind of perk this bike up and make it feel a little bit less dowdy and probably kind of push aside some of those comparisons with Hondas and CFMotos that look similar-ish but the price is the big one for me I mean just over nine and a half grand for this one and nearly ten for this that's a lot of money I suspect at some point they will probably come down in price because they'll need to you may think differently if you do please drop a comment down below because from where I'm sitting asking a two and a half pounds for this one over the G680S is a bit rich but I stand to be proven wrong and in some ways I'm hoping proven wrong because in isolation brilliant bikes and I think they'll probably have the beating of the XSR700 which is getting a bit long in the tooth the Z650RS as well is a little bit old hat and it's a pretty weedy motor in comparison to this grunt monster here so thank you for watching this review hope you've enjoyed it if you liked it drop a like and then subscribe as well and we'll bring you the next one