“
WE ALWAYS
HAD LOTS
OF PEOPLE JUST
STANDING AND
STARING AT IT
for which he held the dealership. His activities caused shockwaves around the globe.
The spectacular sport had previously been largely confined to Europe, but now
caught the imagination of the Americans and, as the word was spread by a new
generation of colourful, glossy magazines dedicated to the off-road market, its
popularity simply exploded.
On the other side of the world, New Zealand and Australia also felt the fallout from,
and the potency of, race wins, especially when they were related in some way to the
bikes sitting on showroom floors.
In New Zealand, Colemans Suzuki looked at the success of the works bikes and lobbied
the company, with whom they had a close relationship, to produce similar machinery for
their local market. Showrooms were full of TM-series motocross bikes, but while these
were cosmetically similar to the lightweight machines used by the motocross rock stars,
they were a very different proposition, and uncompetitive in the expert classes.
In late 1973 and early 1974, their requests were answered when Suzuki did a production
run of works replicas for the New Zealand, Australian and English markets to be issued
to selected riders. They weren’t quite as trick as the European stars’ bikes but they
were still light years ahead of what everyone else was riding at the time. Among the
noticeable differences were steel seat bases, rather than aluminium, less use of exotic
metal billets, thicker guards and different suspension. But the key components such
as engines, frames, wheels, tanks and many smaller items were identical.
Two RN400Ls came to Colemans Suzuki and were assigned to Ivan Miller and Peter
Ploen to race. They were unbeatable – simply in another class.
With only 20 or 30 production RN400Ls built, and the works Grand Prix machines of
DeCoster being crushed at the end of each season, this New Zealand RN is one of the
few remaining, and it’s fortuitous that the man assigned to be Miller’s mechanic at the
time, Russell Burling, was motivated to take on the project when it became available.
KIWI RIDER 27