1976 Kawasaki KZ650 Four - 10-Page Vintage Motorcycle Road Test Article

Description

1976 Kawasaki KZ650 Four - 10-Page Vintage Motorcycle Road Test Article
Original, vintage magazine article
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
Think of it as a squeezed-down Kawasaki Z-1,
Or as a Honda CB550 with muscle-power,
Or as a 750 snorter—with short legs.
• The small Z-1 was Inevitable: success
breeds Imitation. And if you want to talk
about success as measured in the world
of commerce, complete with sales charts
that go climbing up-and-up and bottom
lines that have figures big and black, then
consider Kawasaki’s Z-1. The King Su-
perbike has been a King Money-Maker.
So it seemed natural that Kawasaki, a
manufacturer who made it in America
with performance, would return to the
well again after building the KZ400 and
KZ750 for the lunch-bucket market If
Kawasaki hadn't built a compact Z-1,
someone else—as we know now—would
' have. And did.
In the hard world ot commerce,
achievers get imitated, and the imitators
get Imitated. There is developing, after
. all, a kind of Universal Japanese Motor-
-Cycle. The Great Moto-Japan Factory
brings out these mechanical clones, con-
ceived in sameness, executed with preci-
sion, and produced by the thousands.
The clone-print is well known: tranverse,
air-cooled, in-line four-stroke, single-or
double-overhead camshafts, four cylin-
ders, five speeds, disc brakes, silent
mufflers, perfect electrics, interlocks,
outerlocks. Idiot lights and safety slo-
gans—and so on to the next clone. Sneer
not; the concept is widely applied be-
cause motorcyclists vote for it with their
money. Yes, there's progress; second-
generalion machines are usually better
than the first-generation ones. With U JMs
it's repetition that improves the breed...
13639-AL-7611-04