1980s 500cc GP Bikes: The Greatest Paintjobs Ever

500cc GP roadracing bikes from the 1980s look glorious!

There’s something about those old 500cc grand prix roadracing bikes from the 1980s that makes them a bit extra-special for me. Maybe it was the men who rode those bikes; names like Freddie Spencer, Eddie Lawson, Wayne Gardner, Kevin Schwantz, Wayne Rainey and Randy Mamola come to mind. With those wild 500cc two-stroke bikes with no traction control or other fancy electronics, the racing used to be quite spectacular. Also, that was the age before tobacco sponsorship was banned, and the racing teams were sponsored by cigarette manufacturers like Marlboro, Rothmans, Gauloises, Camel and maybe a few others. The thing with these sponsorships was, the paintjobs the bikes got were some of the best ever. Who can forget those Marlboro Yamaha YZR500s and Rothmans Honda NSR500s of the 1980s? Suzuki was sponsored by Pepsi in 1988 and 1989, and the 1989 Suzuki RGV500 in Pepsi colours was a sight to behold. Cagiva did not have a cigarette or soda manufacturer sponsorship but their all-red bikes looked glorious anyway.

I followed 500cc GP racing (the modern equivalent is, of course, called MotoGP) from the late-1980s all the way to the end of the 500cc two-stroke era, with Valentino Rossi winning the last 500cc GP championship in 2001. After that, the bikes went from being 500c two-strokes to 990cc four-strokes and the series was renamed ‘MotoGP,’ and I still watched just about every single race till around 2012 or 2013, after which I gradually started losing interest. Over the years, manufacturers came and went and the balance of power kept changing – Ducati came in, in 2003 and became a force to reckon with, Kawasaki and Suzuki came in, left, came back again and left again. Aprilia, KTM and GasGas have come in over the last few years and some teams are doing well. The new MotoGP bikes look very different from their 1980s predecessors and have now sprouted all kinds of wings and spoilers to help with the aerodynamics. Personally, I don’t like the new bikes as much as the old ones. Everything seems to have changed. Everything about motorcycle grand prix racing that I knew and loved, is gone. The bikes are more powerful than ever before, the speeds are higher, but something is missing. What that is, I don’t know. All I know is I miss the bikes and the racers and the racing from the 1980s.

Maybe it’s just that I’ve gotten old and have reached the age where everything from the past looks better than everything in the present. But that’s okay, I can live with that.

   

Here's a glimpse of how the racing used to be. This is the German grand prix and Wayne Rainey and Kevin Schwantz are going at it hammer and tongs. Those were the days!