Okay, the time is right and you want to own a Kettle and the urge just won't go away! It may be that you see it as being something different or a yearning that you've lived with for years, having missed out back in the day ............ you want one and you want it NOW!

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STOP - THINK -  BUYER BEWARE! KETTLE OWNERSHIP IS A JOYOUS THING, BUT ONLY IF DONE RIGHT. JOIN THE CLUB BEFORE BUYING ANYTHING - DO YOUR RESEARCH - IT COULD SAVE YOU A FORTUNE AND A LOT OF GRIEF!

 

Yes, Kettles are very, very desirable and are becoming more so. But like any piece of classic machinery they have important, individual points to look out for before spending money. All of our members would strongly recommend that anyone contemplating buying and/or restoring a Suzuki GT750 and who does not know the machine inside out (literally), then they need to sign up for membership of The Kettle Club and then seek out the collective knowledge within the club and if necessary, ask for assistance before taking the leap. That's what being a member of this club is all about. Hell, you might end up buying a machine through the club as we've always got a few on our books.​

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Do you know what model you want, as styling can be all important to some?  Look to see how the model varied and developed in "The Bike" section above and decide whether you prefer the early styling of the J and K, with their attention seeking colour schemes and "ray gun" exhausts, or the more traditional look of the later models. They too have different states of tune, making them a remarkably different riding experience to the machines from the M model onwards.

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Buying a Kettle as a "box of bits" might seem to be an attractive proposition, but in today's market and with the rising costs of restoration services such as chrome plating (and there's a lot of that on a Kettle!); this would probably end up costing you twice as much as what you might pay for a fully or partially restored and running machine. Let's face it, the Classic bike market is currently in a state of decline and prices of all but the most exotic machines have fallen and yet, parts and the services referred to above, continue to rise. Regardless of condition, average Kettle prices are generally around £2000 less now than they were 2 years ago and yet most commercial sellers  (and some deluded private sellers) don't appear to have grasped the fact. Of course some of these sellers have probably spent a substantial amounts of time, money and effort on their machines and are finding it hard to accept the loss but heh, that's the classic world for you. So as a buyer, there's a lot going in your favour nowadays and unless you absolutely can't help yourself, there's no need to pay over the odds to become a Kettle owner. ​

If you are not after a top-drawer machine, or are not too fused about things such as originality; you can find some very sound and reasonably presentable and reliable machines out there. If restoration is your bag however, then providing you pay the bare minimum for the base machine (buying the most complete example is always the best bet) then with the assistance of a club such as ours, it is still (just) possible to achieve a full restoration within a feasible budget, but only if you are prepared and able to do the vast majority of the work yourself and better still, if you have the right contacts. ​Incomplete project rebuilds can give good results. Some sellers often run out of steam after spending lots of cash on a restoration over a long period of time and just want to pass it on to someone else.

 

As with buying any classic machine, PROVENANCE is king i.e. history. Many machines on the market nowadays have spent much if not all of their lives overseas, so don't expect them to have any history at all, before they came into the hands of the seller. This can equally apply to even UK original bikes. If the seller is one of those referred to above and has already commenced work, then receipts for anything major or not visibly obvious, should be present. You should never be prepared or expected to, take a seller's word on anything. And that goes for any machine, regardless of how 'pretty' it might appear. There are a lot of what are colloquially known as "polished turds" out there, that can catch even experienced buyers out. If the seller claims that major work such as a crank rebuild, new seals etc. has been done; who did the work and when? Was it someone well known and acknowledged?

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I think you get the picture. Look, The Kettle was in its day a flag ship machine for Suzuki. It was a middle digit to the other Japanese manufacturers of the time, particularly Honda, whose CB750 was Suzuki's main target. To that end, Suzuki were determined to engineer a machine that would not fail from the outset and in order to achieve that goal and to minimise the risk of failure, they over-engineered the hell out of them - a fact born out by the numbers still in existence, even after 50 years of neglect and abuse. When you combine that robustness with the simplicity encompassed in even a water-cooled 2-stroke; then it's no surprise that the Kettle is becoming seen as one of the most practical classic machines to own, of its era. But they are still machines, with their own particular foibles  - none of which are serious, but need to be understood all the same. And the only sure way of addressing that is through intimate knowledge - the kind that you'll only find in a club solely devoted to this one machine. So if you want to know more, then join the club!