Written by Martin Hodgson
They say you’ll always remember your first, and exactly 350 articles ago I penned my maiden article for Pipeburn about a stunning Suzuki T500 Titan. Now the builder of that machine is finally back with another wicked Suzuki two-stroke, a 1966 T20 racer. Ralph Spencer from Southfield, Michigan, USA, clearly knows the sort of bikes that get him going and he builds brilliant Suzuki smokers for both race and road. But his latest Spencer Motoworks creation is both AHRMA GP250 eligible and licensed to rip you up on the roads at the traffic light Grand Prix, fittingly he calls it ‘The Hustler’.

The 250cc Suzuki two-stroke was known as an X6 in the US market and a Super Six in the UK thanks to its generous 6 speed gearbox and also sported the companies revolutionary Posi-Force oil injection system. Immediately they were a success on the race track and they’re still setting red-hot times at the Isle of Man Classic TT. The man who can have what he wants, Jay Leno, has one and Ralph is a project engineer building full tracked combat vehicles; so you know they’re no ordinary machine!
But when this particular T20 came to Spencer Motoworks it had definitely seen better days, as Ralph explains. ?I found the bike at an estate sale and bought it for $100. It had been raced as a flat-tracker and was in rough shape. Not needing another project that was in horrible condition I wasn’t interested, but the owner begged me to take it...