Photos by Alexandra Straub.
Kawasaki didn’t unveil any earth-shattering new plans at EICMA, but they did say they’re working on plenty of new models for the coming two years. They also showed photos of a prototype paying homage to the original Z1.
The most interesting development Kawasaki showed was refinements to their supercharger. While forced induction technology met a quick demise when it originally appeared on production bikes in the 1980s, it seems Kawasaki is pursuing the concept more closely now, as they said they’re refining their supercharger. It seems the H2 and H2R will get better in the future, instead of disappearing quickly from the lineup.
Speaking of future plans, Kawasaki said they plan to unveil 12 new models in 2017 and 2018.
Presumably, that’s when we’ll see their mid-sized supercharged bike come out; that machine was rumoured to appear this year, but that didn’t happen this morning.
Kawasaki also showed images of a new concept bike that pays homage to the Z1 900, Kawasaki’s original superbike from the 1970s.
It doesn’t really look like the Z1, but presumably it’s either in the same engine class (1000 cc) or brings some other game-changing capability to the table. Kawasaki’s president said they couldn’t confirm the bike would make it into production, and wouldn’t give much information on the machine.
For now, the machine is just known as the SC01 concept. Kawasaki did not present a physical mock-up of the machine, so it’s possible it’s no further along than a simple CAD file at this time.
Kawasaki also announced some upgrades to their scooter lineup (revised CVT, a new 125 cc step-through), which is still not available in Canada. They also announced a special edition of the Vulcan S, with a slipper clutch
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