THE KING IS Z
With its streamlined styling, bright red paintwork and a fiery 120bhp powerplant, the GPz1100 was arguably the world’s fastest and most aggressive superbike when it was launched in 1983. That’s how I remember my two weeks spent riding one that summer, as a young and speed-obsessed road tester: being blown away by its performance before writing a report headlined ‘The King is Z’.
The Kawasaki was fast, alright. A windy day at the test strip kept its measured top speed below the expected 140mph figure, but my comment that “I’ve never ridden a motorcycle as consistently rapidly on the road as I did the big red GPz1100” summed up its appeal. The GPz was the latest and greatest in Kawasaki’s brilliant line of air-cooled, eight-valve fours, and held its hotted-up engine in an advanced chassis featuring anti-dive equipped front end and monoshock rear suspension.
Despite that blend of power, tradition and technology, the GPz1100’s reign – if indeed it did rule over Suzuki’s rival GSX1100EZ and Katana, which was open to debate – would prove brutally short. Ironically, it would be ended not by a
