Long before our current era, when automakers are bamming out super-fast supercars to the point where some of us might feel, a bit cynically, like nothing much could impress us anymore, there was a time when we were all a little more innocent, a little more capable of finding joy in the simple pleasures of a man on a motorcycle, popping a wheelie at 215 mph. It was the early 2000s, and speed freaks the world over were united by the throb of their hearts, all thumping in unison to an unhealthily accelerated beat in their dizzying excitement over the “Ghost Rider.” The pseudonymous, presumably Swedish motorcyclist started circulating footage of his death-defying stunts, performed at police-humiliating speeds on streets all over Europe, in 2002. He immediately attained mythic status and just as swiftly inspired a bevy of copycats (which was ill-advised, on their part—some have ended up arrested, and even worse, others ended up dead).
By the time he released his sixth video in 2012, “Ghost Rider 6.66: What the F**k,” the daredevil hooligan’s identity had pretty much been confirmed: the man behind the mask is now commonly accepted to be the former competitive racer/stunt cyclist and mechanic Patrik von Fürstenhoff. Though the from time to time rumors of Ghost Rider/Fürstenhoff’s death have circulated on various internet forums, a quick Google search reveals he’s still alive and (mostly) well. According to Drive Tribe, he’s around 52 or 53 years old by now; some online have said he’s a loving father of two (at least one child is prominently featured on Fürstenhoff’s Facebook page); others have said he now lives a quiet life working at a Subaru dealership in Stockholm.
That’s all well and good for Fürstenhoff, but what about the true star of all those illicit videos? Which was, in the minds of many viewers, not Ghost Rider at all, but rather his terrifyingly impressive Suzuki Hayabusa, that record-setting, insta-legend speed demon that had European regulators clutching their pearls in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The tale of the bike, alas, comes to a sadder end than that of its rider. A cash-strapped Fürstenhoff allegedly raffled his own indomitable two-wheeler off in an internet competition in 2012; and less than a decade later, Suzuki would decide to cease production of this seemingly supersonic marvel of engineering (though, never fear, they couldn’t keep this bike down for long). As legion as the Ghost Rider copy cats may become, could anyone’s YouTube feats ever compare to the ones Ghost Rider performed on his monstrously modified turbo Hayabusa?
Here’s what happened to Ghost Rider’s Suzuki Hayabusa, from the halcyon times of its illegal heyday to its devastating demise, to its Phoenix-like rebirth.
The Deets on Ghost Rider’s Super-Tuned Suzuki Hayabusa
Internet forums abound with users nostalgically speculating as to what happened to that blistering Suzuki Hayabusa from the Ghost Rider videos, but the thing to remember is that we’re not just talking about one bike here—the all-black-clad automotive adventurer maniacally maneuvered the streets on several different vehicles throughout his filmography. However, Ghost Rider could most often be seen accelerating the bejesus out of either a Suzuki GSX-R1000 or a Suzuki GSX-1300R, his most beloved Busas of all, of which he could be spotted on various year models, each with their own unique modifications, natch. For instance, in Ghost Rider Goes Crazy in Europe, our eponymous hero was filmed astride a fully carbon-fiber GSX-R1000 K4. In next year’s Ghost Rider Goes Undercover, he favored a GSX-R1000 K5 with 280+ brake horsepower.
It’s that latter bike that probably won the most hearts and minds among Ghost Rider fans. This wasn’t just any GSX-R1000 K5—it was a very, very special one, built for Ghost Rider with love by MC Xpress, a Sweden-based company founded by racing bike enthusiast and amateur engineer Erik Marklund back in the 1990s. Though it has but a small team of about nine people, including Alf Sundstrom, the company is considered the ultimate authority when it comes to turbocharging motorcycles and snowmobiles and sells its DIY turbo kits (with unique parts, some of which were invented by Marklund, like a curved intercooler, manufactured in their own factory) around the world. Marklund, described by some as “a total madman,” has a global reputation for building absolutely explosive bikes, and Fürstenhoff collaborated with him several times when he was still competing on the track (under his own name) in the 1990s, breaking several world records with MC Xpress–modified bikes.
Fürstenhoff was apparently hoping to get Marklund and the MC Xpress team to help him create a turbo Hayabusa that would set a new record at Germany’s hellish Nürburgring race. The team famously selected for the task that 2005 Suzuki Hayabusa GSX-R1000 K5, which, out of the factory, had a tested power output of 147.3 hp and measured top speed of something like 178 mph. With WP forks, ISR brakes, and many, many other modifications, they created a bike that runs 1.2 bar of boost and made up to 500bhp at the rear wheel (though, admittedly, the bike was prone to overheating at that speed). Its top speed was mysteriously reported to be a shiver-inducing “enough.” Fürstenhoff availed himself of the souped-up power-steed for his more illicit exploits in a few of his Ghost Rider videos and was recorded performing a should-be-impossible 211mph wheelie on the bike. (He would end up setting a record for hitting a wheelstand at 215 mph.)
2012: Ghost Rider Inexplicably Gives Away His Suzuki Hayabusa
Though the erstwhile Ghost Rider has made some efforts to get back on the road, it seems his glory days are probably behind him. There have been various uncorroborated reports of sporadic arrests, and whether or not they’re true, he certainly does seem to be having money troubles: in 2015 he had to resort to a Go Fund Me to raise the money to take him to a stunt competition, while another crowdfunded effort to make a new Ghost Rider movie didn’t even get off the ground. (Apparently Fürstenhoff never really made any money off his underground DVDs, due, paradoxically, to the huge popularity of his videos: there were so many illegal downloads he was never able to turn a profit.) Perhaps it was a similar need for money or just a desperate bid to reclaim some of his early 2000s fame, that led Fürstenhoff to announce, like Ghost Rider, that he was giving his notorious and glorious turbo Suzuki Hayabusa away through a competition on his (now-defunct) website. It was never reported who won that competition, or if he even really gave the bike away or not, so the exact whereabouts of that GSX-R1000 today remains unknown. And as for Fürstenhoff, he’s still chasing his need for speed, but maybe just a little slower these days. He posted on Facebook last week that he recently suffered a serious motorcycle accident that has left him in agonizing pain, and will take some time to recover from. Ah well, speed freaks—maybe it’s time to look for another anonymous Nosferatu of the high-velocity wheelie.
2018–20: The Suzuki Hayabusa Gives Up The Ghost…Only To Come Back From The Dead?
The Suzuki Hayabusa was always a controversial animal. Its record-setting speeds (it was, after all, at one point the fastest production motorcycle ever made) alarmed regulators to the point that Suzuki had to cap its max speed at far lower than what the machine was capable of. And then, in 2018, Suzuki announced that the 2019 model would be Hayabusa’s last—the bike couldn’t meet EU emissions standards, and Suzuki decided the US market wasn’t enough to bear the cost of continued production. It seemed like the end of an era—but the story isn’t done yet! Motorcycle lovers everywhere felt a surge of adrenaline when in 2019 it was announced Suzuki had filed a patent for an exhaust system that could meet European regulations, and now we know that, at last, a 2021 Hayabusa is fast-approaching on the horizon. Maybe, just maybe, Fürstenhoff/Ghost Rider can perform a similar rise from the ashes, and steal our hearts once more as he blazes off into a criminally fast blur on this new generation of machine.
October 12, 2020 at 03:45AM
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Here's What Happened To The Suzuki Hayabusa From Ghost Rider - HotCars
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