Kawasaki.htm

The Kawasaki Page

Yeah, I know this electric lime green makes you squint, but they didn't ask me when they chose the Kawasaki racing colors!

The company that built some of the Japanese fighter planes of World War II entered the motorcycle market a few years later than the rest of the Big Four brands. Everything about their machines can be traced back to this fact. Since Kawasaki entered the U.S. market more than five years later than Honda, the company arrived on these shores long after the 50cc tiddler boom had begun to mature. Their first motorcycle was sold in the U.S. as an Omega, not a Kawasaki, and it was a 125. Kawasaki has never imported a step-through or any model less than 90cc. All Kaws have tube frames and telescopic forks: they rolled right past the era of pressed steel frames and leading link front suspension. After the Omega 125, the company sent over a 120cc as their smallest model, but the 250cc Samurai was the one the company really promoted. It's big brother, the 350cc Avenger, was the fastest street 350 in motorcycle history at that time. Certainly most of you know that Kawasaki built a Japanese copy of the 650 BSA and imported it almost from the very beginning into the U.S. The company did participate in the trail riding boom, producing most of their models appropriate within the official Tiddlerosis parameters of less than the 500cc middleweight class. The company produced many models and displacements of enduro and motocross persuasion, with the 350 Big Horn being the largest. Their street lineup, as it pertains to Tiddlerosis, included the 90's at the bottom and the 400 Triple at the top. Although the current Ninja 250 is probably the closest thing to a Bultaco Metralla or Ducati Diana being manufactured today, it cannot be included in Tiddlerosis due to its youth. I personally loved the Mach III from the first time I saw one in a magazine. I owned a 1971 model (the blue one) for 17 years, so I must have liked it. It was the last model before the company prescribed a muscle relaxer. In case you didn't know, the 1972 versions (the orange ones that came with either a disc front brake or CDI) were slightly detuned from the highly strung level of the '69-71's. Some years prior to my purchase of the Kawasaki legend, I had a 1969 G3-TR Bushmaster for a trail bike. For the abominably horrific out-the-door price of $340, it included a cradle tube frame, aluminum alloy fenders, telescopic forks, a speedometer separate from the headlamp, chrome rear shocks, and many other little details that made it the bargain of the day. Yes, the front shocks should have been dampened in both directions and the rear springs were too stiff, but what do you expect for $340? That was one sweet little tiddler!

You know the drill. Click on the photo to make it grow. I cannot swear in court as to many of the year designations. Kawasaki did not even put a month and year code in tiny print at the bottom of many of these brochures. None were printed with a model year stated in the titles or text, either. I doubt if any of the stated years are off by more than one or two. Here is a clue you can use to decipher the years. The last photo is of my own 1971 Mach III with the laser decals introduced that year. I have a full set of Kawasaki tiddler brochures for 1971 that have not been scanned for this page. They all have the laser decals. All the early Kaws up until the Samurai had chrome tank panels. Notice on the 1967 Cycle World ad that the Samurai has a two-tone painted tank, but the Avenger and Commander have chrome tank panels. The Avenger brochure I have noted as a 1968 may instead be a 1967. The 1969 brochure definitely has white tank panels, and I have a full-line brochure that validates this fact. The bottom line is that I cannot be absolutely certain at this point which photos are 1966, 1967, or 1968 models. I have full-line brochures of the 1969 and later models, so there is little question of the particular styling cues employed during those years.