Steve Cooper looks at the street scrambler that came to these shores by accident…
So, as we all know, street scramblers were never sold in the UK, right? Well, why would a company do that when we Brits have always had a reputation for being a conservative bunch when it comes to buying motorcycles? Very few teenagers of the 1960s and early ’70s ever had dreams and aspirations of riding our machines across the arid plains of the south west of America or emulating those that did. To be quite frank, few here even knew about such lairy adventures.
And yet a handful of Suzuki street scramblers apparently plotted up in Blighty back in the day. The story goes that the British Suzuki dealers were selling decent volumes as the Swinging Sixties ticked by and demand was regularly outstripping supply. So, when a cargo ship happened to be in the vicinity, the story goes that it was rerouted to an East Anglian port (Felixstowe, Harwich or Ipswich) where numerous bikes were unloaded.
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In amongst all those 250 Super Sixes, 200 Invaders and nifty little tiddlers was a small cache of TC200s which were erroneously unloaded. Imagine rocking up to collect your brand new 200 Suzuki twin one Saturday morning to find you’d been foisted off with a Stingray? Whether that handful of customers were happy and impressed or miffed and angry has, unfortunately, been lost in the mists of time.
The TC200 Stingray was a two year only model based heavily upon the T200 which itself only ran 1967-71, depending on market preferences. Designed and built as a smaller brother to the hugely influential and popular Super Six/X-6, the bike (marketed in America as the Invader) offered a claimed 23hp and top speed of some 85mph. At just 123 kilos fuelled up and ready to ride, the T200 was a little pocket rocket and potentially as fast as many British 350s or even 500s.
The model proved to be popular in markets like the UK where motorcycles of 200 cee-cees or less were notably cheaper to insure and tax. Just like Yamaha’s comparable CS 180/200 range, few who sampled the bike found it lacking. Styled very much in the Super Six vein, the bike changed little over its lifespan, other than the tank which lost its separate chrome panels to be replaced a similarly shaped tank with spray painted silver panels. One curious difference between its peers and the Invader/Stingray was the lack of a self-starter; the Yamahas had dynastarts and the Hondas had separate starter motors. Suzuki presumably didn’t see the need for fitting them but strangely later did on the GT185 which was the T200’s replacement.
That the TC200 Stingray existed was a given; pretty much most of Suzuki’s sub 500s road machines also came in street scrambler format. The high braced bars and necessary cables were all that was changed on the front end and the motor received a bash plate secured to the frame’s down tubes via tacky if effective U-bolts. Once again, the main distinguishing facet and stand out feature was the exhaust system. Upswept pipes protected by capacious slotted chrome covers immediately drew the eye with the tail pipe outlets finished at a rakish angle. It was the quintessential street scrambler makeover, delivering maximum visual impact for minimum financial investment. And once again, the American target market lapped them up. As the kids might say – winner, winner, chicken dinner!
But within three years the TC200 Stingray, pretty as it was, was history. By 1968 (or 1969 at the very latest), the bike was off the production lists. Suzuki had moved on to pastures new
and wouldn’t be selling street scramblers ever again… And then, just as the Stingray was being pensioned off, the firm came out with another motorcycle that sported high pipes and raised braced handlebars. The T125 Stinger might not have been sold as a street scrambler, but everyone knew that was precisely what it was. We’ll have to have a look-see at that in a future issue, won’t we?
