Death of road going 2 strokes?

[jihem]

I kinda recallreading it was the Japanese factories that wanted the two strokes to be authorized in GP, back in the late 50's...Or is my mind playing tricks ? Can someone confim ???

[Orson]

I kinda recallreading it was the Japanese factories that wanted the two strokes to be authorized in GP, back in the late 50's...Or is my mind playing tricks ? Can someone confim ???

I'm just guessing but I think the GP rules back in the 60's didn't specify two-strokes or four-strokes...only the number of cylinders and number of gears allowed in gearboxes. When the FIM changed the rules in 1968 to no more than 6 speeds, 125s and 250s to no more than two cylinders and 350s and 500s to no more than four cylinders, this gave two-strokes an advantage.

 

Honda has always wanted to race what they sell so, they saw no advantage to spending millions of Yen on two-stroke racing technology. After the 1968 rules changes, Honda took their ball and went Formula 1 racing.

 

I believe MZ was the first factory to race two-strokes in the GPs in 1957...then Ernst Degner defected from East Germany to Suzuki and the rest is history