GT380M-JUV | The GT380 Collective

GT380M (1975)

This is my first GT380, a 1975 model M in Gypsy Candy Red which I purchased in 1979 with only 1500 miles on the clock

Still have this bike today and still ride it when I can

Picture taken at its last required MOT in 2017 as it's now classified as Historic

This is the bike shortly after I got it in 79

It was completely standard, excepting crash bars and rack, but like most of my early bikes I didn't take any photos of it at that time.

This was take after I'd already made a few mods, like painted forks, cut-down seat and fibreglass mudguard

These were never the quickest of bikes, but did ride well and handled ok so more than enough to match most of my mates at the time

I think it took less than a week for me to find the limitations of the exhaust clearance on the right and then on the left and even also the centre stand so those needed to be addressed by changing to a 3-1 Piper from Street Machine in Romford

That pipe sounded awesome and saved so much weight over the standard set, but even with the pipe changed and the centre stand taken off I found the rider pegs decking out

Couldn't find an off-the-shelf replacement footrests so took a trip over to Mel Lemoto in Kent where they sorted through their parts and managed to knock me up a set of rearsets

It was several months later before this picture was taken, and after an accident (that's why I'm wearing flares and there's a crutch on the floor - broken femur)

If you could expand the image out there were actually 3 crutches on the floor, 2 were mine and the other was my mate taking the picture who also had a separate accident an did his ankle

DSM paintwork on the tank done a friend 's uncle and still a few scuffs left to sort from the prang

Due to me also having several speeding offences on my Driving Licence, making insurance very expensive, I had to drop down to using a Suzuki X7 for a year and then went on to get a Kawasaki Z650 and as such the GT380 remained unused for a few years

In 1987 I got round to moving my bike from my parent's house and got it all road worthy

But it wasn't until early 90s that I decided to get the frame and black parts painted and to put the bike back to standard, initially using the original bits I'd taken off the bike many years before

A Few years later I managed to source New Old Stock (NOS) versions of the major parts including Full Exhaust Set, Tank, Shocks, Front Tubes, Indicators, Seat, Mudguards etc. and got Hagons to rebuild the wheels.