Six Therapy

If you’ve been following Allen Millyard’s exploits with his project to build a six-cylinder version of the Z1 Super Four, Kawasaki’s answer to Honda’s CB750 launched in 1972, you must have been wondering just what it’s like to ride.

This saga, the latest in a number of epic projects to build what many riders regard as unfeasibly complex machines that look like the result of a wild and untempered imagination, started at the Stafford Show in October 2019.

At the show, Kawasaki parts specialist Dave Marsden had reminded Allen that he should build an in-line six, no doubt thinking that having already turned out a V8 based on the Z1 and a V12 in the Z1300, it would be a relatively straightforward task.

Now Allen’s never one to resist a challenge and at first he considered building another V8, thinking a six might be too wide to make a convincing example of what Kawasaki might have produced. This prompted the acquisition of parts from a 1976

Z900 engine, but while studying these in his workshop, Marsden’s idea came to mind. Allen made some paper templates to show how an inline six might look, and what the width would work out at.

Because Allen has been a master of metal since he started his craft apprenticeship at the turn