Listen, I've scared myself silly more times than I can count on the back of sport bikes holding on for dear life.
I've sped through canyons with precipitous cliffs on either edge, I've popped wheelies (allegedly) in 3rd and 4th gears, and launched hard at intersections when up-start hot-boi Lamborghinis think they're the shit. And I've gone fast. Real fast. All with the glorious sound of a liter bike between my legs, screaming or yowling, begging for more throttle.
But for a lot of people, the terror of a sport bike may supersede the want to ride them quickly. They may look at a sport bike and think, "Wow, that's a deathtrap. There's no way I'd ride that even close to its limits." And with that, they may never experience those motors blowing through their rev ranges and slamming their needles into redline, which is highly unfortunate as it's one of life's greatest pleasures.
There is, however, a company that has been working to solve the fear issue of sport bikes, and that's Rush Auto Works. Their solution? Stick those ludicrous liter-bike motors into a purpose-built racecar tub with four wheels and a Formula 1-style Halo cage structure and sell them to the general public. Oh yeah, that sounds good indeed.
The Rush SR is, as mentioned, a four-wheeled racecar. But at its heart is the beating lump of an engine out of a Suzuki GSX-R1000, except built and sealed by Rush as all good race engines are. According to the company, the motor makes 145 horsepower at the wheel and will scream all the way until 11,800 rpm. Each engine is dyno tested for that rating, too.
Rush connects the engine to a 6-speed pneumatic transmission that features no-lift shifting, the same you'd get in most liter bikes with quickshifters. Likewise, there's a limited-slip differential out back to keep everything all nice and planted when going around corners. And, oh yes, this thing was meant to go around a corner.
Fully adjustable suspension from RAW is complete at all four corners, with camber and toe adjustments built in as well. There's also adjustable sway bars for further fine-tuning. Brakes are Rush four-piston calipers both front and rear, while a dash-mounted brake bias tuner helps you get the best out of the setup for each specific track and the conditions.
But where the Rush SR really shines is in weight and packaging.
Now, the naturally-aspirated Gixxer motor isn't the most potent of engines. It's a revver, not a torque or horsepower monster. So anything heavier than its original form is going to be, well, likely pretty slow. So Rush paid special attention to keep adding weight to a minimum, as well as tuning the engine to perform with said weight increase.
All in, the Rush SR weighs just 1,130 pounds full loaded, apart from you or I. That's still quite a bit more than stock, but when you're talking sub ton weights with 145 horsepower at the wheels, well, that'll get up and go based on my experience with today's go-fast UTVs. It also helps that the whole racecar is the size of a loaf of bread in terms of dimensions.
And if you're really an adrenaline junkie, and you absolutely need more horsepower to set your hair on fire, you could spring for the Rush SRX, which adds a turbocharger, and ups horsepower to an eye-watering 220 wheel horsepower, along with an additional 30 in the form of a "push-to-pass" system. The company also lightened it, because why not, and gave it a host of extra goodies that aren't on the standard SR.
Now let's talk turkey. Rush wants $48,995 for the SR and $83,675 for the SRX. That's quite a bit more compared to Suzuki's $15,849 for a GSX-R1000, but when you add a body, cage, proper aerodynamics, two more wheels, two more brakes, and a bunch of other things, you start to see it as a bargain. Especially when you could turn up to your local track day, unload your Rush SR racer and smoke Porsche GT3 RS' all day long for a fifth of the price.
And you'd get that spine-tingly superbike noise, which is worth its weight in gold. At least I think so.
