TOPIC:

Mike,
Your setup might have improved torque at that speed so it would pull in top better?. It must breath more efficiently I would guess?. I'll find a suitable bit of road next time i'm out on it, which might be next year!. We always have a wind here too, so it would be good to try on a more still day.
I would think the only way to know for sure would be to ride them back to back, do you know anyone in your (large) neck of the woods who has a 350?. One of the lads on the forum said there wasn't a huge difference in perceived riding performance between the 350 and the 500?.
My great unknown is actually what the performance should be, or feel like, there are so few around, especially 350's, it would be almost impossible to ride with anyone who has the same bike to compare.
Alan.

Once the pandemic lock down is over here I'll give it a serious run and see what it's capable of. The best rpm for performance I find is between 5000 - 6500rpm. After that acceleration tapers off to the red line.

I don't know of any other owners in Victoria unfortunately. There is a 350 owner in Tasmania and with luck we may manage a get together once the whole Covid thing is over.

Mike

Mike,
That would be an interesting exercise
If there are any UK based 350 Saturno owners reading this who would be interested in a comparison, post Covid, please get in touch.
Alan.

I had 2 350s in England back in the late 90s early 00s and I reckoned both were capable of getting to almost 100mph. I would think 96-98 could be a true figure. Did a few ride-outs when I ran the Gilera Club and all of the other Saturnos were 500s and they really weren't that much quicker and would think just over 100 for them. The reason there weren't many 350s is that Gilera only made about 50 of them, the vast majority were 500s as that's what the Japanese wanted. I did have the exact number made split between 350/500, plus was in the middle of tracing every one of them throughout the world. Recorded the engine/chassis number for each one, surname of owner and location and was probably over 75% done when my laptop fried and I lost everything. Still miss both my Saturnos but they had to go (along with my other 3 bikes) when I returned home to Queensland. Paul

Hi Paul,
What an interesting insight, I had no idea they made so few 350's. Do you know roughly how many Nuevo Saturno's were made altogether?.
That list you were compiling would have made great reading..
Cheers,
Alan.

Hi Alan,

Memory is certainly not what it used to be (and no way of confirming it now) but I think total number built was around 1500 (all hand built with 6 staff per bike on wooded and some metal tables). Again from memory 1,000 for Japan & 500 for Europe. UK took originally 5 from the Europe number but this was increased as required. Nearly all the European/UK ones were standard red with red (which rapidly changed to pink) wheels and black with white wheels. I had my red one changed to white wheels as I think it looked so much better. The various other colours and 'specials' like the Isle of Man and others including twin exhausts were purely for Japan. The list would have been very useful as it also included those that were purely race bikes (although all converted from original road stock bikes) and I did have good pictures of all them plus details of the riders and teams. Also lost were all of the Club records of members and their pictures. When my lap top fried I hadn't even thought of backing everything up elsewhere and went to various computer places who basically said nobody would be able to retrieve anything from it. Lesson learnt, but too late now of course. I was in Melbourne 1969-1977, then Europe 1977-1990, Hervey Bay 1990-1997, back to Europe 1997-2014 and finally back home to Hervey Bay. Due to age I had to stop riding 2017 and really miss it now. Enjoy your Saturno, Paul