0-100mph-0 shoot out

[Kal]

Two wheels Only, September 05
FASTER THAN YOURS
The International King of Bikes now rules the car world too as our GSX-R longtermer beats all comers in a 0-100mph-0 shoot out

Two wheels better

For the first time ever a bike has won the Autocar magazine's annual and mildly prestigious 0-100mph competition. Our own GSX-R1000 longtermer, recent winner of TWO's International King of Bikes all-comers roadtest. in the hands of our very own Niall Mackenzie, posted a time of 10.82sec, beating the roofless but very, very fast £30,000 Ariel Atom Supercharged by a small but significant 0.06sec.

Surprisingly (to us at least) the Atom was quicker than the GSX-R up to 60mph. Less surprisingly, the car absolutely toasted the Suzuki on the brakes (100mph-0 in 3.8sec to the bike's 4.93sec). However, it was the GSX-'s mighty 2.45sec 60-100mph time that gave it the winning advantage, beating the pedestrian Atom by 1.26sec.

Unfortunately for Niall the GSX-R would only pull a genuine 98mph in first (we datalogged it first to check) so he had to shift up to second somewhere before shutting off at an indicated speed of 107mph and pinning the front to the ground on the brakes.

"It wasn’t that hard but I really was conscious of getting it right as quickly as possible because I don’t think the clutch would have lasted more than a few runs," said Niall, who posted his fastest time on his second of three runs. "The change into second cost me a lot of time too. It was only a token effort really, but it was nice to show the car boys who's boss."

Overall times 0-100mph-0
Suzuki GSX-R 10.82sec
Ariel Atom Supercharged 10.88sec
Ford GT 13.17sec
BMW M5 14.16sec
TVR Cerbera 14.54sec
Mitsubishi EVO IX 15.15sec
Porsche 911 Carrera S 15.39sec
Vauxhall Monaro VXR 17.17sec
Ford Mustang 18.43sec
Renault Megane Trophy 20.85sec

[Mintbread]

Price of an Ariel Atom - £30,000

Price of a GSX-R 1000 - £8,800

The chance to stick one
right up the four wheel crowd - Priceless

[jmillheiser]

odd selection of cars in that test. Not sure what an Ariel Atom is. Guessing a tuner elise or something like that. Was suprised the EVO beat the porsche (unless they tested the only available in the UK FQ400 EVO). The rest of the field was no suprise. Still odd selection of cars. Everything from a ultra high performance tuner car to a glorified compact (the renault).

[jmillheiser]

ok just googled the Ariel. That thing is basically a 4 wheeled motorcycle or an F1 car with 2 seats. And I thought the elise was a minimalist car.

[iwannadie]

they need to compare 'normal' cars to the gsx. id like to see a stop and go test against a mustang or a vette.

[Mintbread]

They did a test years ago in Motorcyclist I think it was. They had a FZR1000 up against the new (at the time) Vette. The FZR was all over it in acceleration and lap times, but obviously the Vette was better under brakes. I thought the most telling stat was when they had a photo of the car and 10 FZR1000's and a 600 or two to point out what you could buy with the money it costs for one Corvette.

[Itzamna]

they need to compare 'normal' cars to the gsx. id like to see a stop and go test against a mustang or a vette.

If you read through the list of cars, there is a mustang. They probably just didn't compare those two since mustangs are slow. 8 sec difference isn't anything worth comparing.

[jmillheiser]

Cycle World did a test like that about 10 years ago. It was a GSXR-1000 vs a Viper. the Gixxer won hands down in every area and you could buy about 10 Gixxers for the cost of the Viper.