Ah, the 90s. Or, as some call it, the naughties. A time of grunge music, Madonna getting her gear off and motorcycles with weird and wonderful colour schemes. It was a time when Kawasaki’s ZZ-R1100 was the king of speed, Honda’s Fireblade broke the superbike mould and Japanese manufacturers brought us 400cc race replicas with lights.
The likes of Honda’s CBR400RR and Kawasaki’s ZXR400 packed screaming four-cylinder engines into what was essentially a miniaturised superbike equipped with alloy frames as well as top-notch suspension and brakes. And, despite never officially being imported into this country by their respective manufacturers, these pocket rockets attracted legendary status from the folks that rolled on two wheels in the late 80s and 90s.
I spent lots of time on CBR, ZXR and FZR400s back in the late-90s and early-2000s when I worked for Red Baron Motorcycles, the leader of grey imports back then. So it was with fond memories and high hopes that I fronted up to Morgan Park Raceway in Queensland for the launch of Kawasaki’s new four-cylinder screamer.
While the ZX-4R is a lower-spec machine void of a quickshifter,
