1973 Kawasaki Z1: King of the Road
(Page 2 of 5)
May/June 2006
By Margie Siegal
Z1 Origins
The Z1 was the successful result of an intense effort by Kawasaki to make a major splash in the motorcycle world. Kawasaki Heavy Industries is an old Japanese company, and was one of the first to start large-scale manufacturing when Japan began rapid modernization in the late 1800s. The Kawasaki Dockyard began building ships in Tokyo in 1878, but soon branched out into locomotive and bridge building, and, in 1937, aircraft manufacturing.
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Small motorcycles became a popular means of transportation in Japan when imported motorcycles began coming into the country in the 1920s. Soon afterwards, fledgling manufacturers started building Japanese versions of these imported bikes. One of these was Rikuo, who built copies of Harley-Davidsons under license: Troyce owns one of the few Rikuos in the United States. Another was Meguro, who started making copies of four-stroke British motorcycles in 1937.
By this time the war Japan would lose was breaking out in Asia. By the end of hostilities in 1945, Kawasaki found itself out of the aircraft business. Still in possession of a large, well-equipped machine shop, the company turned to building motorcycle parts, and eventually complete motorcycles: Kawasaki’s first bike, the 1954 148cc KE of 1954, was built at the aircraft factory.
Japan's economic recovery was slow, but by the mid-1960s motorcycle sales, which had dropped in the late 1950s, had taken off again. It was, however, a very different market. In the 1940s, the public needed cheap transportation. In the new markets of the 1960s, young and newly affluent people, especially in the United States, were interested in the sport of motorcycling, and demanded big, fast machines.
The Japanese were quick to respond to the market, and by the late 1960s Japanese motorcycle manufacturers were displacing the British companies that had dominated the global motorcycle market for years. There were many reasons for this, including support from Japanese banks and the government for industrial innovation. But a critical element was the willingness of the Japanese manufacturers to forgo immediate profit in favor of long-term investment.
While the British factories were still using prewar equipment to build motorcycles, Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha and Kawasaki purchased new tooling to produce up-to-date designs to tight specifications. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Japanese bikes may not have had the excellent handling characteristics of the Italian and English bikes, but they did have electric starters, leak-proof crankcases and bright headlights.
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