Owner (FaceBook): Adrian Kemp

Purchased (Gumtree I think) in September 2014 for $1800 done 48,327km.  Absolute bargain.

In 1984 I was 18 and working in the country riding a Honda XR200.  Heaps of fun, but glad it didn’t go that fast because both I and the bike spent a lot of time on our arses!  I never really figured out how to jump the darn thing.

The only insight into road bikes or exotic cars was from the local newspaper magazine racks.  But even I remember seeing it appear on a cover – it was truly breath-taking, like nothing else I had ever seen.  I immediately wanted one and was going to ride it around Australia.  Of course I had zero cash (pubs) and you really needed a set of wheels to cart  around your mates & impress the girls.   So the GPz faded from view.

After owning some pretty fancy cars (inc. track-days & hill-climbs) I eventually came to recognise a fundamental flaw with a performance car, even a supercar.  The problem is the better the car, the faster you need to drive it to appreciate it.  Catch 22.  In my old age I now realise just how much pure fun the Fiat X1-9 is.  You rev the crap out of it, there’s noise, vibration and it’s so tiny you feel like you are speeding but in reality only driving at legal speeds.  It’s tiny and it is a serious handling little machine, I read in 1978 only the Porsche 911 Turbo could generate higher cornering G’s.  These little cars are simply great fun.

My S3. Probably should have gone for a Seven…..

Or put the Honda S20 turbo into this……

So I sold the supercar for a shed!

But whilst I love my family car (BFPOS -Big Fat Piece of Shit according to the better half!) that can carry the family thousand’s of km’s (Adelaide to Brisbane) in spacious comfort and in stifling heat (45C at Dubbo) as a driving experience it is somewhat limited.

So I needed something small & not too expensive, modifying & owning fancy cars like the Esprit burnt a big hole in my pocket I’m still sewing up.  Hmmm, why not a bike?  I quite liked the Triumph 675, but when a GPz turned up there was simply no comparison.   So 30 years later she finally arrived in my driveway.

Most of us know that there are two rear mudguards for the bikes – a long & a short one.  Even though in Oz we have the short one it’s still pretty big.  So from the side I have trimmed away excess material – there really isn’t any structural need for this.

And I’ve never liked the OEM plate light, IMHO it just looks like an afterthought.  I picked up one of these from Repco,  nice clean design with the top housing only 25mm deep – twin LED and fully ADR compliant. . Only problem is it’s designed for a full-size plate, bikes have a significanty smaller one.  So this did require cutting out the central section and plastic-welding it all back together.  I even brought it in smaller than the plate width because IMHO it looks a liitle sleeker.  Very happy visually with the result and it’s tucked in nice and neatly below the rear brake light.

Apr 2021 – AU$46 from Repco

I do remember the bike had custom plates something like: GPZ-A8, he kept it of course.  I recall he did say I could re-register with these but when I got to Service SA and went to register the bike they said nope, these were not available.  Wasn’t that fussed!