It’s been a gestation period worthy of an elephant, a new version of Suzuki’s iconic Hayabusa rumoured, teased and, for fans of the world’s fastest motorcycle, anticipated for at least five years now.

So many leaked patents, mock-ups, and spy shots have made the rounds of the motorcycling press that a cottage industry sprung up just to manage the latest sighting of the dive-bombing — Hayabusa is the Japanese name for a peregrine falcon, which can hit up to 325 kilometres an hour in a vertical hunting dive — GSX1300R.

The biggest surprise is that the big Gixxer’s engine remains largely unchanged, the 1,340-cc inline-four sharing the previous model’s basic bore, stroke, and compression ratio stats, the rumours of a 1,440-cc version or even a supercharger variant proving as false as a trumped-up election. There’s still a whopping 187 horsepower available, even if that’s a little down on the previous generation’s 194 ponies, mainly — as we’ve all been warned — because the new bike needed to meet Europe’s new, more-stringent Euro5 emissions standards.

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