Vo Knows

Further confirmation that Suzuki will not import 2010 street bikes, especially sportbikes, just funneled through the internet pipeline. While the press department had vaguely confirmed the situation some time ago, with the news coming from Cyclenews.com that factory Yoshimura Suzuki team boss Don Sakakura says they will run ’09 models as opposed to ’10 bikes in American Superbike this year, there seems to be little-to-no question Suzuki will not be importing the ‘10 editions of the bike to America.

While the bike remains the same internally, a host of new European graphics were released overseas – some quite nice looking. Not to mention, it’s quite odd to simply skip an entire model year. This all boils down to 'Zuki helping dealers move the excessive amounts of existing ‘09 product they still have in stock. Though without a new and enticing reason to get consumers to walk in the showroom, one can only think this with will hurt the Japanese manufacturer by keeping people from visiting dealers in the first place.

Many of the other manufactures have done the same with some of its smaller and less popular models, but when it comes to a flagship bike like Gixxer 1K, that’s a totally different story – both from a selling and media standpoint. Not to mention, it’s the bike fans would want to see raced at a professional level, with graphics to match the new '10 machine. Yamaha has recognized the problem, and instead of not making its all-new YZ450F dirt bike altogether, they are simply importing it in far less numbers. Idea being to get people into dealerships with its wow-let's-check-it-out factor. Then buyers will see the awesome deals on previous models and be encourage buy – be it 2010 or discounted 2009 models. Point being, at least they get people to step foot in the door.

For this reason we find it hard to fathom Suzuki won’t be importing at least some ’10 GSX-Rs. We all know the economy is tough right now, so in that respect we can see the point. But can leaving out a full model-year in one of its biggest markets be a good thing? Only time will tell...