How The Quadzilla Became The DEADLIEST Quad Ever Built

quads let's say they make up a unique part of Motorsports perhaps no other segment carries any more stereotypes than that of ATV riders except for probably Harley-Davidson Riders but not only are ATV riders a pretty wild group themselves the history of ATVs is pretty wild too and in order for all of us to understand the true impact of the Suzuki Quadzilla and what it meant to the off-road Riding community we need to take a short history lesson we got to go a ways back like a long long long ways back to understand Mankind's obsession with quads and off-road riding well many think that the ATV movement was an idea that emerged in the 1970s actually it goes back to 1897 when Royal Enfield built a d Dion I believe it was called that produced a whopping three horsepower so really since the engine was invented we've been fixated with riding and even racing these mini four-wheeled and ATV vehicles Offroad I guess that's just what we were built to do but for the modern-day ATV Revolution what we see today credit actually goes to somebody by the name of John go who in 1959 created a six-wheel drive fully amphibious allterrain vehicle that was called the jiger and I certainly hope I'm pronouncing that one right and I remember seeing these six wield amphibious ads and magazines well into the 1970s and as a young kid then I thought these were the coolest things in the world and to take a side step for just a second get a load of this ad here's a bunch of people engaging in an off-road activity with zero safety gear hell this woman looks like she's holding her child you would never see an ad like that today I mean we were just reckless in the 1970s anyway here's why the six- wheel amphibious machine is important to this story and what we see with ATVs today because of the six-wheeler amazing success Honda realizes that the future of Motorsports lies within the allterrain vehicle space but they don't want to make a six-wheeler that's not motorcycle esque so what they create is the 1970 Honda atc90 3-wheeler a machine that has been well documented Ed and the ATV that has supercharged the market that we see today now the atc90 became one of Honda's biggest Sellers and the lur was that it was cheap it was fun and everyone from Grandma and Grandpa to Ma and Pa down to the toddlers could just get on this bike and ride it and of course that was the problem and that would ultimately lead to a lot of people getting killed or seriously injured when riding them now ATVs were not the only dangerous instrument of of the 1970s I mean back then we had no seat belt laws manufacturers made cars with baby cribs in the back window and it wasn't odd to see 18 children stuffed in the back end of a station wagon and some of the most dangerous motorcycles of all times were built back then like the Kawasaki H2 Widowmaker but the beef was with the Kawasaki H2 Widowmaker it was maming adults but the majority of three-wheeler accidents were maming children and thus an outcry of government intervention would begin now this brings us to Suzuki Suzuki was late to the three-wheeler game with the ATL 50 125 and 185 but they really weren't selling any three-wheelers because Honda was dominating that space But Suzuki sees that lawsuits are starting to Pile in on three-wheeler ATVs and the US government is wanting to bring legislation against them so they decide to seize the opportunity by capital iing on the misfortunes of Honda and turned themselves into a major ATV player they wanted to create something different something unique something gamechanging and that they would do because they would bring to the market the very first modern-day four-wheeled ATV that was called the Quadrunner 125 in 1983 now Suzuki sold this bike as a better alternative to the dangerous three-wheelers they claimed that with the addition of the extra wheel that the bike is safer and it's less likely to tip over which was a big flaw of the three-wheelers the quadr runner was aircooled 125cc fourstroke that had a 5-speed transmission and a convenient automatic clutch it also had electric start and reverse now these were serious luxuries on ATVs back in the early 80s the LT 125 Quadrunner is an immediate success and this puts Suzuki on top of the ATV game now being slightly ahead of the other other manufacturers in four-wheel development they want to strike while the iron is hot and what they would do is create a racing version of the quad with a 1985 Quad Racer 250 this was a completely different animal to the lt225 and something nobody had really seen up to that point it was a true out-of-the-box race machine and the first of its kind it was a single cylinder two-stroke had a full floating rear suspension system weighed around 2 993b and retail for $2,299 that would equate to about $657 today now obviously being the first true high performance race oriented quad the Suzuki lt250 is a hit it's every adrenaline junkie's dream and up to this point nobody had ever seen anything like it it was obviously way better than the ddon right and either through boldness or br bragging wres the lt250 was the kind of machine you just had to own you had to know what it felt like to whack that thing wide open it was the kind of machine that made you rev the piss out of the engine in your garage bursting the eard drums of the people in your neighborhood and then permeating the community with a Godzilla likee Atomic Haze it just kind of possessed you to do that stuff the lt250 was so successful that other manufacturers decided to jump in the ring Honda would retaliate with the four tracks trx250 and Kawasaki would make the takate now this was back to a time where Suzuki used to think big used to seize opportunity and know no limits not like the Suzuki we know today now they know America wants more they know America needs more and damn it America deserves more so it's time for them to build something unfathomable something legendary something Godzilla esque so in 1987 a few of Suzuki's mad scientist Engineers bring to the market the most vicious off-road creation ever seen the lt500 Quad Racer now where the lt250 was just a shot of Jack Daniels the lt500 was a straight shot of moonshine nothing in Quad land was even close to this monster the fact that Suzuki even built this thing is a miracle in itself the entire Suzuki Factory must have had a devilish grin on their face for everyone that rolled off of the assembly line but what made this machine so dangerous and so insane and warranted the Zilla moniker was simple it was total Overkill it was the ultimate of excess I mean Suzuki boldly went where no manufacturer would go and to Suzuki's credit they never masked any of the intentions with the lt5 500 they set out to build a weapon and that's exactly what they did now Not only was this machine fast but the lt500 looked fast it looked dangerous the engine was huge it looked like it was 80% of the machine's total mass it was loud it was smelly it vibrated so hard it would often crack the motor mount bolts and Shake every screw and nut loose on the bike you could easily sprain your ankle or Break It just trying to start this Beast and the power brutal there was no mercy in the hit and it seemed to rev to the Moon it was a White Knuckle experience every time you wrote it and while was frightening as it was at the same time it was liberating it was a type of high you just couldn't get anywhere else and this is what made the machine so freaking special this ability it had to tap into a much deeper and darker side of your personality because the lt500 could go mock speed in places you probably shouldn't be going mock speed in and the chassis was at least decent enough to inspire the necessary confidence to make you think that you could pull speeds like this off and of course sometimes you couldn't it was the type of machine you wanted to talk about the kind of machine you coached your friends into jumping on the back telling them it's not that bad just so you can watch them piss themselves the kind of machine that brought you a little closer to your neighborhood Crush just put her on the back she'll be hugging you in no time if you wanted to pass an AMC Gremlin going down the freeway at 80 M an hour well you could do that too while it isn't a wise move to do any of the previous acts mentioned let's be honest that's why you bought the lt500 you didn't buy it for a Sunday Cruise or a gentle putt through the woods you bought it to be Savage to unlock the demon lurking deep inside of yourself you bought it to say that you were bold enough to tame its diabolical nature and you know what that's kind of why most of us ride motorcycles or ATVs in the first place with the LT 500's vicious power plant and its heart racing riding experience it quickly earns the name amongst its owners as Quadzilla a name that Godzilla would gladly approve of and the name itself adds even more Mystique to the quad RAC the Zilla moniker didn't do anything to scare anyone off in fact it made them even more Curious now they wanted the machine more than they wanted it before they had to know what it felt like to straddle that Beast kind of just like right now you're probably wanting to go buy one and ride it yourself cuz I kind of feel that way too but unfortunately for Quadzilla Riders disrespected its power the sudden urge to open up the throttle and the the blatant disregard for just basic Rider safety gave the machine an unfortunate reputation one that certainly didn't helped the problems that ATVs were going through at the time and to make matters worse Yamaha would bring to Market their own monster the Banshee 350 that would become a direct competitor to Quadzilla and that just compounded the accidents with a vicious horsepower of these high performance quads along with three-wheelers still being in circulation injuries started to mount up for ATVs and they were far exceeding that of their two- wheed counterparts and as one would expect as soon as greedy lawyers and media Outlets start getting involved and they start producing fear-mongering articles and news features there's going to be problems I mean even 60 minutes and Phil Donahue started doing negative pieces about ATVs and at that point the government has to step in and do something so the United States government would create what they call the ATV task force and in April of 1998 the ATV decree was signed between the Japanese manufacturers of Honda Yamaha Kawasaki and Suzuki now the US government allowed Polaris to enter into its own separate decree because of the small size of their company and the differences that they had with their marketing practice now many people think this was an allout ban against three-wheelers but it really wasn't the agreement was that there would be a 10-year ban on research and development so there wouldn't be any new developments for three-wheelers until 1998 in addition to that manufacturers would be required to spend about 8 to 10 million dollar in safety advertisements offer a nationwide training program and make Edge recommendations for Quad purchases as well as a host of other smaller requests but the decree itself was sort of bogus like a quidd proquo agreement between Japanese manufacturers in the United States because the United States says well if you stop importing three wheelers we will continue to let you make uninhibited monster quads so if we crack down on the three-wheelers the public is happy they think we're doing our job and you can go ahead and sell them some Behemoth four-wheelers it's a deal right so they signed it however at this point in time the law meant very little to the public the tumultuous history and the Dark Cloud that surrounded ATVs in general had turned customers off and all ATV sales started to decline from there h would just choose to drop out of the ATV business in their view they were getting a massive black eye from being the top selling ATV manufacturer and they're really responsible for causing all these kids to have fatal or near fatal injuries so they just stopped making racing quads and eliminated all of their sponsorship for ATV racing shortly thereafter Kawasaki would follow but Yamaha would follow the law and Soldier on continuing to make ATVs without updates much like they do with their YZ 252 stroke but with threatening lawsuits and a shift in Motorsports buying Suzuki had no choice but to discontinue the mighty Quadzilla and in 1991 just four years after its introduction to the world the yam monster would vanish off into the sunset left to be remembered by only a few since the 1988 ATV decree ATVs and now their offspring utvs continue to under scrutiny there's been more regulation more decrees and in spite of all the advancements in technology the Dark Cloud still hovers closely over ATVs so the question is was Quadzilla really a killer was it a true Widow Maker well that depends on how you choose to look at it through either the lens of fear or the lens of realism according to the cpsc between 1985 and 1992 there were on average of 200 150 to 300 deaths yearly with ATVs while that's not good from 1985 to 1991 which was the age of the power quads that statistic remained relatively the same and even after the decree was signed in 1988 there was very minimal drop off in accidents definitely not as much as one would think so based on this statistic my answer would be no because the Quadzilla didn't do anything more to contribute to what ATVs were already going through at the time in fact all of the excessive regulation and decrees seems to have done absolutely nothing to stop ATV injuries and why is that because as any true Motorsport enthusiasts will tell you it's never The Machine's fault it's always the rider's fault and that is true and according to the National Institute of Health the ATV deaths from 1990 to 2018 75% of those involved Riders who were not wearing a helmet and not wearing a helmet or proper safety gear isn't the manufacturer's fault it's the Riders now in addition to that 86% of these incidents involved men 10% women and less than 4% children so the biggest violator of this is adult males who are not wearing helmets not women and not children and who knows how many out of these incidents involved intoxication now this type of behavior seems to be something that continues to plague ATVs perhaps it's the false sense of security that a few extra Wheels gives us and maybe that makes people feel that a helmet is not necessary and while this seems totally strange maybe I can offer some insight according to the National Institute of Health West Virginia and Alaska by far have the highest ATV fatality rates and as someone who was born and raised in West Virginia quads there are a Birthright it's a way of life and while I always rode motorcycles and was never really into the quad scene everyone in my family had and still has a quad but my father always forced my brother and I to wear a helmet but I have to admit for the times that he wasn't looking my brother and I took them off I know that was stupid but that's what we did and one of the reasons is because the kids in the neighborhood thought it was uncool to wear a helmet again that's stupid but we wanted to fit in and we wanted to look the part and also somewhere in my crazy head I thought four wheels were safer than two I mean none of us would ever go helmetless on our dirt bikes but we did it all the time on our quads and it wasn't uncommon that after school in the 1980s while our parents were at work all the kids in the neighborhood would jump on their quads still in our school clothes with no helmets and romp through the woods of West Virginia irginia and as you would expect one day a friend of ours was badly injured while riding an ATV without a helmet now he would eventually make a full recovery but I was so traumatized over that incident that I really never wrote a quad again and if I did I always wore a helmet and today I won't get on any form of motorcycle bicycle quad ATV UTV or anything without a helmet not even if I'm just going to cruise around the cue sack but you see me and my friends ignorance is not Japan's fault it was my fault it was me wanting to act cool it was me disrespecting safety and looking back I'm lucky I'm alive safety is our responsibility as Motorsport participants it's our responsibility to respect our machine take the necessary time to practice and hone in our skills with the proper safety gear and while doing all of the previous mention doesn't guarantee that you're never going to have an accident or be hurt it does greatly reduce the chances and as the saying goes anything is dangerous in the hands of a fool now back to the monsters for just a minute University of Southern California Professor Leo Browdy an author of the book The Haunted explains that there are four types of monsters one the monster of nature that embodies Mankind's fear that nature will take her revenge out on us for our transgressions against her two the monster of science something that was created purposely from huus in an attempt to bring to life an unprecedented being three The Jackal and hide monster one with a double life or a split personality where the true demon doesn't lie in front of you rather it lies within you and for the monster from the past the ghost that haunts you for the wrong doings that you fail to correct and I guess you could say that the Suzuki Quadzilla was all of those things but the truth is monsters are not real they're just figments of our imagination and what scares us the most about a particular monster is that its power Taps into something that we are personally afraid of but it's not the monster it's us we're the ones that create the level of fear and in every facet of Our Lives we choose what we want to be afraid of in all of Godzilla's films you'll notice that while he is a terrified monster capable of unfathomable destruction it's only when he's unnecessarily provoked as he unleash his wrath all Godzilla ever wants is respect he would much rather live amongst us than against us and that was the same thing with Suzuki Quadzilla a machine that was obviously capable of unfathomable destruction but only when you unnecessarily provoked it did it ever unleash its wrath and the Suzuki Quadzilla just asks for your respect because he too would much rather live amongst us than against us sayara tomadachi

Channel: Born A Goon

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Id: I6uhWaOuTSw

Length: 21min 16sec (1276 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 06 2023