First Post:
Hard to believe this is a new topic, but a search of the site did not lead to a discussion on the origins of the Savage model or its unique persistence over 3 decades. Is this an old topic I was just unable to locate?

Interestingly, in the post on LS650 Engine Numbers elsewhere on this great website, it appears from the unbroken sequential serial numbering that an average of only 3,000 Savages were produced/sold annually over the model's lifetime. If that's correct, it is an 'unsustainable', low number which adds to the Savage enigma.

I have been habituated to motorcycling since 1966. Bought my new-to-me 2005 S40 about one year ago from a local CL listing. It is my 36th motorcycle and is now the only one I own. As most on this site, I find it remarkably, if unexpectedly, competent. Trying to find more information about the model lead to discovery of this site and the many years of carbon copy reviews of the few MC Journalists who bothered to review it on introduction.

Had to dig deeper into how it came about and why it remained in the market for so long at such low production numbers and stayed virtually unmolested from original format despite the massive technological changes that have occurred over Savage's lifetime.

Write-ups cite the change from the 4 to 5 speed gearbox as having been a significant improvement. If I've read the bottom and top gear ratios of the 4's and 5's correctly, even they are the same as original with only another click stuffed somewhere in between. It amounts to no change.

Too, the new 652cc engine itself is mysterious. Ordinarily it's a matter of developing new applications for existing power plants and Suzuki already had the proven DR's 600 cc engine to stuff into a new, affordable US cruiser format - had it intended to keep model development costs and street price low. It didn't, though, did it? Even as the DR moved into 650 space with significantly higher performance numbers and build volumes, they continued to produce the de-tuned 652 in its own, single-model low-sales vacuum. Why?

If this or these topics have been raised previously, perhaps someone more familiar with site content - or other sources - could direct me to the discussion. If exploration of Savage's origin is a new subject, would this be the right place to begin such a discussion?

Thanks!

The bike design was singularly 'intentional'. It wasn't created out of a normal 'parts bin' process but built and sustained in near isolation all those years. As would be the case ahead of each discreet (generally, annual) production cycle, minor recommendations from the shop floor would have entered the picture as the pressure for optimizing speed and efficiency is always on. Other models saw innumerable production refinements over their lifetimes. It is likely that someone in purchasing pointed out that the 5 speed gear assembly components were cheaper because of higher volume application in other models than Savage's one-off 4 speed.

As I see it, Savage must hold the record for the least molested, longest-lived motorcycle in the history of the industry. Journalistic knee-jerk hands the title to Enfield Bullets - emphasis on the plurality. Hell, they even changed country of manufacturing along with a chain of major revisions the likes of which Savage never saw. Reagan and Trump - and all in between - could have bought new, near identical Savages during their presidencies.

Had Suzuki merely been spitballing market prospects of an affordable US cruiser style model, they would have built it around an existing engine. They didn't. It was a ground-up effort. The domestic LS-400 was the same bike with a smaller hole bored through the jug and probably a tweaked head to accommodate that. That's not to say Savage got entirely new concept clutch and throttle controls and grips or a one-off horn; obvious slip/screw-on stuff was used. Most of the build, however, was and remained isolated not only from the pack, but from trend. Nothing that Japan and Suzuki had been doing throughout the preceding decade and subsequently disclosed competitive aspirations to achieve the lowest HP output per-cc.

Something else was going on in the boardroom at the time the bike was first being planned and whatever that was survived changes in board composition and agendas over 30 years. A bit more than a 1986 spitball, Savage became corporate dogma until the US government regulated it out of existence.

Identifying the reason for that, I think, will paint a picture of Savage's currently overlooked and unique place in MC history.