Well , Kawasaki has finally done it . I ’ m sure it ’ s been a long time in the planning and execution , but it ’ s about time , and there are going to be a lot of happy campers in the Kawasaki fan camp . At the Tokyo motorcycle show , Kawasaki unveiled the Z900RS , which is now a real thing . Yep , Kawasaki has finally given Team Green fans what they ’ ve been requesting for years – a modern retro-sport ( uh huh , that ’ s a class now ) that is worthy of the name and has been directly inspired by the original Z1 . There have been plenty of bikes from Kawasaki which have had the ‘ Z ’ prefix over the years , but none have had the retro looks and performance you might expect of a bike designed to pay a modern homage to the bike initially developed under the code name of Project New York Steak . Sure , the Zephyr range from the 1990s kinda had the looks but certainly didn ’ t have the performance . Fast forward four months from the Tokyo Show and Kawasaki NZ has taken delivery of the new Z900 – dubbed the Z900RS ( retro-sport ) to differentiate it from the Z900 non-retro-but-certainly-quite-sport – some 46 years after the original 1972 machine . We received a call at KR from Kawasaki HQ – which has de-camped from its long-running Auckland address to a new site in Hamilton and is quite a feat considering it only took four days in execution – inviting us to Pukekohe Park Raceway to lay our greasy mitts on the new bike , which was to be introduced by non-other than Graeme Crosby , the Kiwi most closely associated with the Z1 – historically and today with his beautiful rebuilds and upgraded originals . It turns out the Larrikin Biker assembled the very first Z1 in New Zealand in 1972 . As a bonus , we were also to get to opportunity to ride Kawasaki ’ s newest sporting entry into the LAMS market , the allnew completely and redesigned Ninja 400 . Yamaha ’ s YZF-R3 has had the sports LAMS market pretty much sewn up for the last couple of years and Kawasaki ’ s baby Ninja has been on the back foot .
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Kawasaki is set to shake up the NZ market with the retro-sport Z900RS and all-new Ninja 400 .