SWANK AND SENSINBILITY
Kawasaki’s November 2019 acquisition of a 49.9 percent share in Bimota has brought the Italian boutique manufacturer back from oblivion. Despite component supply issues, it’s now constructed all 250 examples of its limited-edition kickoff model, the supercharged hub-centre Tesi H2 now being shipped around the world – but mainly Japan.
The Tesi H2 has now been joined by the KB4, a less radical but nonetheless innovative follow-up model, which was displayed in production-ready guise at last November’s EICMA show, with a retail price in Japan of ¥4,378,000 ($A47,100). But there’s still no word of availability in either Europe or Australia, despite production being in full flow in Bimota’s new 2500m² factory housing its 13 employees. With 105 examples already manufactured at the time of my recent visit there, and 30 of the bikes already shipped to Japan, I was the first journalist anywhere in the world to be able to ride the result.
Despite having tested almost all the different motorcycles Bimota has produced in its halfcentury of existence, after a couple of hundred kays on the KB4 on challenging roads, I was surprised to discover this wasn’t at all the bike I thought it was going to be. That’s because the KB4’s styling by Bimota’s Enrico Borghesan makes it appear to be the latest of the many Bimota superbikes-for-the street, but it’s not.
“If we’d wanted to make a new-generation
