The Fastest Street Motorcycles Ever Made [2024 Edition]

Why We Picked It:

During the 30 years preceding 1925, motorcycles year to year made steady engineering improvements.

George Brough pioneered the earliest British Supersport bikes with Brough Superior and the SS100. An accomplished racer and holder of World Records, he built the SS100 with a 45 hp (a crazy figure for the day) 988cc V-Twin and multiple outsourced components. Each bike was test ridden prior to delivery, certifying its ability to meet spec.

This test ride was done specifically because of the SS100's claim to fame, and the source of its nametag, the "Super Sport 100." And what is that claim? The SS100 is credited as the first production bike to achieve 100 mph.

Why We Picked It:

In 1948, Vincent Motorcycles had already matched the Brough Superior SS100 Pendine and its 110 mph speed record. Entering 1949, Vincent moved the bar in a big way..

Producing 70 hp from a strengthened 998 cc V-twin out of the Black Shadow, and stripping away as much weight as possible, the Black Lightning was handed to Rollie Free to send across the Bonneville Salt Flats.

After some positive test runs hitting 148 mph, I keep trying to imagine the conversation Rollie had with his team:

“Ok boys, the way I see it, if I strip down to my underwear and laid out like Superman I can get us the record!”

“Sounds good Rollie, let's do it!”

After a 2 way average of 150.313 mph his status as a Legend was made, and Vincent was the first manufacturer to hit 150 mph.

Why We Picked It:

In North America it was known as the GS1150ES; to the rest of the world, it is the GSX1100, and gave birth to the name that almost any Suzuki supersport is known by today: The Gixxer.

However, in 1984 (released as a 1985 model year bike), the GS1150ES was unlike anything that had come from Japan before. It has simultaneously been called the last "big standard" from Suzuki, as it had no fairings like standard bikes of the time, as well as the first major supersport from Japan, arriving just a few months prior to Kawasaki's first Ninja supersport.

At the time, however, it was the fastest ¼ mile bike tested by Cycle World. It would rocked down the drag strip in just under 11 seconds, and was going 120 MPH when it broke the timing beam. This is thanks to its 1,075cc inline four, which produced a fairly massive 111 HP for the 1980s. Its claim to fame lies also in the fact that if you tucked down behind the short windscreen and pinned it in 5th gear, it would tickle at 150 MPH, making it one of the fastest bikes of the original supersports era, although its dominance did not last long.

Why We Picked It:

After Suzuki's short domination of the supersports speed title, Kawasaki released quite possibly one of the most important bikes of their entire history, the 1984 Ninja GPZ900R. Called either a Ninja 900 or ZX900A depending on where in the world you lived, this was a powerhouse motorcycle that shaped the future of supersport bikes the world over.

Carrying a 908cc inline four, it made 115 HP at the crank and, thanks to a very slick 6 speed transmission, had one of the lowest rates of parasitic loss of any motorcycle, resulting in 100+ HP at the rear wheel. It was so fast, so brutally quick in acceleration, that it set records for initial release year sales.

What made it so exceptional was the fact that it used the engine as a stressed member of the frame, but then paid attention to the aerodynamics of the bike and added fairings across the sides of the engine, starting the trend for sport bikes that continues to this day.

When Cycle World, the biggest motorcycle magazine in the 1980s, got their hands on one, it tested into the 10’s with a 10.94-sec pass. “I feel the need, the need for speed”, Mavericks life motto from a little movie called Top Gun. Of course, he had to ride a GPZ900R (Ninja 900), the first production bike to exceed 150 mph. The power of the bike pushed the venerable little Ninja 900 to 151 mph.

Why We Picked It:

Kawasaki and the legendary ZX-11 ruled the first half of the ‘90s. It is not so much a claim as simply a statement of fact. When it released in 1990, it beat out absolutely every other manufacturer with a top speed that was limited only by the redline in 6th gear of 176 MPH.

Unknown to Kawasaki at the time, the ZX-11 was a gigantic gauntlet thrown down for other manufacturers of sport bikes the world over to make something that could beat it. It proved to be a difficult task as the ZX-11 brought forth a ton of new innovations for superbikes. It was the first to use a ram air induction system, for example. It continued Kawasaki's amazing transmission engineering as well, with a record-setting parasitic loss of only 7.4% total power.

It also had a very cleverly designed engine, and even at 1,052cc it produced a fairly astonishing 145 HP, which was the most powerful inline four engine for its displacement at the time. It also had a body that had been shaped and refined in a wind tunnel, and the result was a very slippery, very powerful superbike that accelerated like crazy and was, in the words of a few reviewers, "almost unbelievably fast."

Why We Picked It:

Throughout the first half of the 1990s, many manufacturers tried to reach the lofty bar that Kawasaki had set. While the ZX-11 could reach 176 MPH with the North American version, it was slightly limited in many other regions to "just" 170 MPH, and that was the goal that every manufacturer set their sights on.

Honda, however, were the ones that planted their flag in challenge, and was the first manufacturer to beat Kawasaki at the speed game. This came about with their designed-for-nothing-but-power-and-speed CBR1100XX Super Blackbird. The name was inspired by the SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest manned, regular-flight aircraft during its service as a Mach 3+ spy plane.

It is an appropriate name too, as the CBR1100XX was designed and engineered in Honda's skunkworks program. Only the best of the best worked on it, and the result was a superbike with a 1,137cc inline four that produced a mind boggling 164 HP!! Add to that a body that was sleeker and slipperier than anything that Honda had made before, and then give it enough torque to reverse the spin of the Earth...um yeah, that will work. New record? 177 mph.

Honda did not realize it at the time, but they had just fired the first salvo in what would come to be known as the Power Wars, a period of 4 years from 1996 to 2000. The Wars saw manufacturers pushing the extreme limits of what you could shoehorn into an engine, how slippery you could make a bike, and how fast you could accelerate and top out at.

Why We Picked It:

Hayabusa is Japanese for “Peregrine Falcon”. A Falcon is known for its speed, and its diet of “blackbirds.” Oh Suzuki, I see what you did there.

Using its full title, the GSX-1300R Hayabusa was originally going to be just a regular Gixxer with an oversized engine in it. However, what the Super Blackbird showed Suzuki was that aerodynamics played a major part in top speed, especially regarding stability. So, while the engine was pretty much ready, the entire frame and body of the Hayabusa was remade with a lot of wind tunnel and computer aided design to make the bike the most aerodynamic it could be, even at the expense of aesthetics.

The result, when unveiled in 1999, was a very polarizing bike. On one hand, it put a serious challenge down to the top speed record held by Honda, but on the other hand, to many, it was unbelievably ugly. However, many of those that were saying that snapped their mouths closed when the first high-speed runs were published by motorcycle magazines the world over.

A 1,299cc monster. A power record of the time at 174 HP. A windscreen and body designed to be tucked down tight over. A body designed to slice the air, not bully it out of the way. The result: A speed record of 194 MPH for the 1999 and 2000 bikes, before the European-Japanese agreement to limit top speeds to "only" 186 MPH.

The Hayabusa set and/or broke so many records that it effectively ended the Power Wars. That is how important and legendary this bike was. No one wanted to, or could, match it before the new Euro 3 emissions regulations effectively ended any further attempts.

Why We Picked It:

Like watching Italians play Briscola, and passionately slamming down the winning card, this was MV Agusta and the 2008 F4 R 312. The Italians didn’t care about the Japanese and their “Gentleman's Agreement”, they build bikes engineered with one goal: being fast... crazy fast! 

183 hp and a dry weight of 423lbs, is a perfect recipe for fast. It was the last mainstream model of the first generation F4 bikes from MV Agusta, and was built up from the F4 1000 R, which carried at 998cc inline four, although the one in that bike produced "only" 174 HP.

Despite being a relatively slippery bike in terms of aerodynamics, it still couldn't quite crack the 200 MPH barrier. But, as it says in the name, it got pretty damned close at312 km/h (194 mph). Hence, the F4 R 312!

Why We Picked It:

In 2013 Ducati, in keeping with awesome Italian swagger, decided they might as well smash all barriers. Here you go public, have this amazing World Superbike on street tires. The 1199 Panigale R, with the “track only” exhaust, made 202 hp. I’m sorry, how much?? 202, and Ducati with a mix of magical alloys reduced weight to 364 lbs.

With the regular "street" exhaust, it was still a monster of speed, as it developed over 190 HP and would still tickle at the middle of 180 MPH. In fact, it was more the aerodynamic drag of the license plate holder and the mirrors on the street version that caused it to only hit 184 MPH, and with both removed, it was capable of 190+ MPH in "street" trim.

Yet, because of the R in the name, if you fitted the track parts but kept the mirrors and license plate holder, you were barely road legal, but it still counted! In full track trim, however, this bike delivered high 9 second ¼ mile times, and brought production motorcycles past the 200 mph mark, at 202 mph.

Why We Picked It:

Released initially in 2012, the Kawasaki ZX-14R, at least before the H2R, was Kawasaki’s speed king. Boasting a 1,441cc inline-four, the bike is electronically limited by the Gentleman’s Agreement to a top speed of 186 MPH. For those unaware of that agreement, it was one of many among Japanese manufacturers throughout the decades to limit power and speed in the pursuit of fairness and safety.

One of the most famous of those agreements was in the automotive sector in the early 1990s that limited Japanese sports cars to 280 HP. However, this was the era of the Toyota Mark IV Supra, the Nissan Skyline GT-R32, and the Mazda RX-7 FD, and it was a very loose agreement, as all three cars could easily reach over 1,000 HP with some mild modification and tuning, and all were capable of over 400 HP on stock parts.

The same is true for the ZX-14R, as for those with access to an ECU unlocker and a little bit of programming knowledge, the governor could be lifted, although it only adds about 8 more MPH before hitting the rev limiter in 6th gear. Still, with a little electronic wizardry and the willingness to void any warranty by raising the fuel-cutoff soft limiter to the hard limiter rev range, 200 MPH is achievable on a flat track in perfect conditions, and that’s plenty fast enough!

Why We Picked It:

Kawasaki could never stay away - the top speed is in their brand DNA. Now I get this bike is a very limited machine, not at all normal production, but fast is fast no matter how you look at it.

In 2015 Kawasaki unveiled the Ninja H2R. Showcasing the pinnacle of what the manufacturer was capable of, the supercharged literbike with black chrome paint delivers 310 HP. 310 HP from 998cc's in bordering on insanity, but then again, looking at the picture above, the H2R screams insane from every angle!

It is so extreme, so out there, that it even looks like it's going 200 mph on its kickstand, it has been taken to over 200 MPH by many lucky owners. However, Kawasaki needed to prove that it was the fastest thing on two wheels that didn't have a jet turbine of a fully encased aerodynamic shell, so in 2016, across the Osman Gazi Bridge in Turkey, the proved it.

Ridden by retired professional racer Kenan Sofuoglu, starting from a dead stop, the H2R accelerated to a mind boggling 250 MPH (400 KPH) in just 26 seconds. It is the first superbike, first motorcycle even, that has broken through to 250 MPH on regular pavement, and still holds the record to this day. While it's not a road legal motorcycle, it simply needed to be on this list as it is, as of right now, the fastest motorcycle ever made.