I saw this bike in Daytona before it had reached showrooms, I can’t recall if it was Lawson or someone famous, basically they opened the box, slopped some tires on, removed lights, and took it racing. It was as if all other bikes were 500s and this 900 was just lapping them. Very intimidating to someone who had just gotten a year old gpz750 and thought was hot. This bike felt like it leaped back from the future.
SHOEI also had just released a special Porsche designed helmet with kevlar/glass hybrid in red/gray ninja which I believe Kawasaki offered as the original Ninja helmet. White/blue came years later. This bike surpassed in life both the gpz1000rx and zx10r top-gun, and in some markets it was sold new deep into the 90s. Years later there was a shaft-driven version in 1000 called concourse in the us, GTR everywhere else. That was a great touring bike, maybe the best I’'ve ever ridden. These days when you say GTR all people know is the 1400 plastic boat.
There was something about that era of bikes that made them feel more real and that you were riding them, instead of feeling fake, fragile, and riding on their own now. You get on a SS bike these days and it just seems to turn just with the thought of it, and no matter what you do the bike turns the same exact way on the same turn all the time. None of this “am I going to make it past the apex or am I going to eat dirt” kind of excitement. :)
I saw this bike in Daytona before it had reached showrooms, I can’t recall if it was Lawson or someone famous, basically they opened the box, slopped some tires on, removed lights, and took it racing. It was as if all other bikes were 500s and this 900 was just lapping them. Very intimidating to someone who had just gotten a year old gpz750 and thought was hot. This bike felt like it leaped back from the future.
SHOEI also had just released a special Porsche designed helmet with kevlar/glass hybrid in red/gray ninja which I believe Kawasaki offered as the original Ninja helmet. White/blue came years later. This bike surpassed in life both the gpz1000rx and zx10r top-gun, and in some markets it was sold new deep into the 90s. Years later there was a shaft-driven version in 1000 called concourse in the us, GTR everywhere else. That was a great touring bike, maybe the best I’'ve ever ridden. These days when you say GTR all people know is the 1400 plastic boat.
There was something about that era of bikes that made them feel more real and that you were riding them, instead of feeling fake, fragile, and riding on their own now. You get on a SS bike these days and it just seems to turn just with the thought of it, and no matter what you do the bike turns the same exact way on the same turn all the time. None of this “am I going to make it past the apex or am I going to eat dirt” kind of excitement. :)