Suzuki is putting the finishing touches on a new manufacturing facility in Japan.
The plant was originally announced in 2014, and is a major five-year project. When completed, the new installation will handle the work previously done by three separate facilities (engineering/R&D in the Ryuyo facility, engine manufacturing in the Takatsuka facility and final assemble in the Toyokawa facility). The new factory is situated in Hamamatsu, where Suzuki Motor Corporation is headquartered.
The new facility will have almost 700,000 square feet of factory space, on a site larger than 40 acres, and will produce the majority of motorcycles headed for our market.
This is most likely all good news for Suzuki fans, as it means we might finally see some of those long-teased skunk works projects come to life on the new production line (turbocharged Suzuki Recursion, anyone?). Suzuki’s reticence to introduce many new models in recent years might partly be explained by this wait for the new factory. However, it’s also possible it won’t affect those models at all, or that it will only mean the cancellation of some of Suzuki’s long-running but well-respected models (SV650, DR650, Savage, DR-Z400—the list is long).
The jury is still out on the longevity of the new turbo era vehicles. I can see them being a maintenance nightmare in a few years. All to game the mpg tests.
That Recursion is cool. I was watching an interview with Guy Martin and he was saying small turbo’d or blown engines are the future of motorcycles.