Turbo Suzuki Recursion still in the pipeline
New Suzuki patent application shows that we should still be excited about its turbo twin
Sometimes concept bikes can be a curse more than a blessing and you’ve got to wonder whether Suzuki isn’t thinking exactly that as we still wait for a production version of the Recursion turbocharged parallel twin.
First shown nearly five years ago, at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show, there’s never been much doubt that the Recursion concept was set to spawn a production model. But nobody expected it to take quite this long.
A production-ready-looking engine for the bike was shown at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show, and with that event happening every two years, expectations were high that the final production model would appear at the 2017 event.
It didn’t.
So we’re left waiting again, with current indications pointing at the turbocharged bike hitting showrooms in 2019.
But at least it is still coming. The firm’s R&D department is still working on it, as evidenced by yet another patent application that was filed on December 15 last year and published on April 19.
The application doesn’t show us anything we haven’t seen before. It contains the same detailed drawings that appeared in earlier patents, with text that carefully lays out some rather boring details of the bike’s intercooling arrangement.
Although certain misinformed publications have jumped on the new patent as evidence the bike is mechanically supercharged rather than turbocharged, they’re patently completely wrong.
The technical drawings clearly show an exhaust-driven turbo, and while the text refers to a ‘supercharger’ – presumably the root of the misunderstanding – that’s simply because engineers will often refer to any device intended to boost intake pressure as a supercharger, regardless of whether it’s an exhaust driven turbo (they often used to be called turbo-superchargers) or one that’s mechanically driven by the engine’s rotation.
Still, while the patents tell us nothing new about the bike, it’s nice to be reminded that it’s on the way. Fingers crossed, it will be one of the most exciting new model unveiling later this year.
