Rumors Suggest Suzuki Working on Retro GSX-8S

When Suzuki has a successful product on its hands the company has often shown it’s not afraid to make multiple spinoffs of the same machine. The latest word from Japan is that the GSX-8S is going to spawn a retro-styled model to rival Yamaha’s XSR700 and Kawasaki’s Z650RS.

It’s hard to fault the logic. The GSX-8S and its existing relatives, the V-Strom 800 family and GSX-8R, have already proved to be a huge success for Suzuki—no doubt a huge relief for the company given their drawn-out development that lasted a decade—and illustrate that the same basic components are hugely flexible. An adventure bike, a roadster, and a sportbike, all based on the same platform, demonstrates that it’s a strong basis for virtually anything else Suzuki wants to create from the same kit of parts. Suzuki is also a company that’s strongly aware of its own heritage, and given the success of rivals like the Z650RS the idea of a retro GSX-8 must have been tossed around the boardroom table.

Elsewhere in its lineup, Suzuki has already demonstrated its willingness to make a variety of models from a single platform. The GSX-S1000, for example, has been used to create the restricted-power GSX-S950 in Europe, plus the GSX-S1000GT and GT+ sport-tourers and the raised-stance GSX-S1000GX and GX+, as well as forming the basis of the GSX-S1000S Katana to tick the “retro” box. And all of that comes from a bike that was essentially created from cast-off GSX-R1000 components.

At the moment, the age-old SV650 somewhat fulfills the retro role further down the company’s lineup, particularly in the part-faired SV650X form offered in some markets, including Europe and Japan, but that bike’s future isn’t clear. While the model was reworked to meet Euro 5 emissions rules in Europe a few years ago, it’s yet to be updated to meet the latest Euro 5+ regulations that came into force at the start of 2025. The GSX-8 is, of course, a much more modern design and one that mirrors many rivals in adopting cheaper-to-make, easier-to-package parallel-twin format instead of the SV650′s V-twin. As an SV replacement, it should be a shoo-in.

While a retro GSX-8 model seems all but certain to join Suzuki’s range at some stage, and possibly sooner rather than later if Japanese rumors are to be believed, there’s still a question mark over what form it might take. Will it adopt the ‘70s-inspired look of competitors like the Kawasaki Z650RS and Yamaha XSR700, with a round headlight and naked, upright styling? Or could Suzuki take a leaf out of its own book and create another take on the Katana, complete with sharp-edged nose and rectangular light?

Arguably, there could even be scope for a faired retro model, along the lines of Yamaha’s XSR900 GP, but perhaps recalling the original slab-side GSX-R750, an idea that Suzuki played with nearly quarter of a century ago with the GS1200SS, launched soon after the turn of the millennium and based on another retro model, the naked Inazuma 1200, which shared some DNA with the Bandit 1200 of the same era.