6 Of The Fastest 600cc Motorcycles Ever Made, Ranked By Top Speed

When it comes to sport bikes, the name of the game is speed. People don't buy these motorcycles for their fuel economy or their comfort on long cross-country trips. They ride sport motorcycles to go fast and whip through turns at breakneck speeds. Big, 1000cc Supersports may be the most performance-hungry models that are currently on the road, but they can be prohibitively expensive for many riders. There are also a lot of people who simply prefer the mid-sized 600cc bikes, as they are considerably more affordable and offer a good balance of road-friendly handling and spritely acceleration. Even so, you still might be interested in learning which of these mid-sized motorcycles is the fastest.

A lot of reviews tend to focus on acceleration when talking about speed, putting the most emphasis on how quickly a bike can go from 0 to 60. This is a good metric for learning how fast you can get up to speed when cranking the throttle off the starting line, but doesn't tell you anything about how fast the bike can go when pushed all the way. To know that, you have to take a look at independent tests performed by trusted publications that have verified its maximum speed. With that metric in mind, it's worth taking a look at a few of the fastest 600cc motorcycles ever made.

Just about everyone who is a fan of sport bikes is familiar with the Honda CBR line. There are six models in the company's current lineup, ranging from the entry-level CBR300R all the way to the absolute beast of a bike that is the CBR1000RR-R Fireblade. All of these bikes are performance powerhouses in their categories, but the Honda CBR600RR is unique even among its peers. The RR at the end of the designation stands for Race & Relay, and the bodywork and engine design both reflect this philosophy.

The CBR600RR is powered by a 599cc liquid-cooled, DOHC, inline four-cylinder four-stroke engine. It has a 67mm bore, a 42.5mm stroke, a 12.2:1 compression ratio, and a six-speed transmission. This might seem like it should be weaker than the larger displacement engine found in the Honda CBR650R, but the opposite is actually true. The CBR600RR is able to put out 113 horsepower at 13,000 RPM (compared to the 650R's 94 horsepower at 12,000 RPM) and 48.7 lb-ft of torque at 11,250 RPM. This, combined with its lighter frame and more aggressive ergonomics, means that it can put out some incredible speeds. MCN has reported that the 2024 model was able to reach up to 160 MPH. This places it at the lowest point on our list, but only by a hair, which is impressive when you consider that this is one of the three bikes to earn a mention with an engine that is technically below 600ccs of displacement.

Just squeaking past Honda, we have the Suzuki GSX-R600. This bike is placed squarely in the middle of the GSX/R series in terms of both engine size and price, yet it is still regularly counted among the most successful Suzuki motorcycles in history. It's designed to blend racetrack-ready performance with comfortable street handling, yet it sacrifices little in the way of power.

The engine is very similar to the one found inside the Honda CVR600RR. The GSX-R600 runs on a 599cc, 4-stroke, liquid-cooled, 4-cylinder, DOHC with a 67mm bore, a 42.5mm stroke, a 12.9:1 compression ratio, and a six-speed transmission. Cycle World measured the horsepower of the 2023 model and found that it was able to produce up to 102.9 horsepower at 13,520 RPM and 44 lb-ft of torque at 11,580 RPM. So it shouldn't be too terribly surprising that the performance is impressive.

According to Motostatz, the GSX-R600 can go from 0 to 60 in 3.34 seconds and steadily climb to 150 MPH before the acceleration really starts to diminish. The report claimed that riders had to lower themselves to reduce wind resistance in order for the bike to hit its true top speed -– 161 MPH. There are a few bikes that can go a bit faster, though.

There are two bikes on this list that have the same reported top speed. The first of them is the Yamaha YZF R6. This model is not currently in production. The R6 first debuted in 1999, and it was a part of the company's lineup for just over two decades before Yamaha discontinued one of its most legendary sports bikes in 2020. The bike was still quite popular at the time, which led many to wonder why Yamaha would stop making such an amazing motorcycle, but the decision was largely due to its failure to meet new EU emissions regulations that took effect in 2021. Even so, the bike was fast.

This is yet another bike that is powered by a 599cc liquid-cooled, DOHC, four-cylinder engine with a 67mm bore, a 42.5 mm stroke, and a 6-speed transmission. Even so, it's the most powerful of the three, delivering 116 horsepower at 14,500 RPM.

So, it should all but go without saying that the Yamaha R6 is quite fast as well. FastestLaps reported that it can go 0 to 60 in 3.2 seconds and that it has a top speed of 162 MPH. All the bikes on this list are within a few MPH of each other, but that top speed makes the R6 one of the fastest motorcycles that Yamaha ever built –- an impressive feat in itself.

Next up is the Italian MV Agusta F3 675. This model was first introduced in 2012 and was widely available for the better part of a decade before production stopped in 2021, leaving the larger 800cc F3 as the only remaining model in the line. The F3 675 is different from the others we've looked at so far for a couple of reasons. To start, it has a 675cc inline three-cylinder engine with a six-speed transmission. This larger triple-cylinder design can give the bike up to 128 BHP and 52 lb-ft of torque, though the added power isn't without cost. 

"It has a counter-rotating crankshaft [...], is one of the best-looking motorcycle creations ever, and its three-cylinder motor has a rasping engine note to die for," says MCN. "But it's flawed. Hard as it is to believe, the power delivery is rough, with holes, dips, and stutters throughout the rev-range." This suggests that while it has a high maximum output, the MV Agusta F3's power delivery is inconsistent at best, which can lead to jagged-feeling acceleration.

Even considering these drawbacks, though, there will always be those who are still attracted to the raw power the bike provides. According to FastLaps, the F3 675 can reach a top speed of 162 MPH, pairing it with the Yamaha YZF R6 in a tie for third place in the rankings of the fastest 600cc motorcycles.

Taking the number two spot, we have the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R. Kawasaki splits its sport motorcycles into three sub-categories: Sport, Supersport, and Hypersport. The standard Ninja motorcycles fall into the Sport category, while the more performance oriented racing bikes are marked by the ZX designation and fall into the Supersport category. So it's no surprise that the ZX-6R is more powerful than the similarly sized Ninja 650. The Hypersport models are even more performance hungry, but all three of Kawasaki's models in this sub-category are powered by 998cc engines, so they don't really compare to the midrange 600cc bikes.

The ZX-6R runs on a 636cc, DOHC, 16-valve, liquid-cooled, 4-stroke, inline 4-cylinder engine. It has a 67mm bore, a 45.1mm stroke, a 12.9:1 compression ratio, and a 6-speed transmission with a built-in quick shifter. According to testing performed by Cycle World, this gives the bike 108.4 horsepower at 13,200 RPM and 45.8 lb-ft of torque at 10,900 RPM. Sufficed to say, this makes for a very fast motorcycle.

The Ninja ZX-6R can go from 0 to 60 in just 3.0 seconds and has a top speed of 164 MPH. This means that it is faster both in acceleration off the starting line and in terms of overall speed than the vast majority of motorcycles in its class. There is one bike that is just a tiny bit faster, though.

Triumph is a British motorcycle company that is best known for its street and adventure-style bikes. The Daytona 660 is the only sport bike currently in the company's 2024 lineup, but the Daytona line has been around for a while and this isn't the first version of the bike that we've seen. There have been several iterations of Daytona, and the company has made slightly bigger and more powerful models in the past. Arguably the best of these is the Daytona 675 R which was in production from 2013 to 2018. In fact, forget being the best Daytona, this bike is frequently counted as one of the best Triumph motorcycles ever made.

Powered by a 675cc, DOHC, inline 3-cylinder engine, this bike was able to produce up to 126 BHP at 12,600 RPM and up to 55 lb-ft of torque at 11,700 RPM–giving it a boost that pushed its capabilities even farther than the original Daytona 675. The slightly more expensive R model further distinguished itself with a new cylinder block that had a larger central air intake running through the headstock, twin-injector throttle bodies, a new ECU, and several other upgrades.

It's this combination of larger engine displacement (that nearly edges it into the 700cc class) and the finer engineering enhancements which pushed the Triumph engine to its limits that makes it the fastest motorcycle on this list. With MCN reporting a top speed of 165 MPH, the Daytona 675 R is a true middleweight monster.