Kawasaki has finally unleashed the Z1000 which was being promoted since two months. The Z1000 has completely new styling and follows the Sugomi design approach which Kawasaki has adopted recently. The Kawasaki Z1000 looks stunning, animalistic and very futuristic indeed. LED headlamps are a Kawasaki first. Die cast mirrors gel well with the character of this new bike. Completely revised LCD instrument cluster has been added to the Z1000.
The Kawasaki Z1000 comes with equipment which has been picked up from the top most shelf of Kawasaki’s inventory. New Showa big piston forks are here with damping and pre-load adjustment. Rear suspension is a gas charged unit which is also adjustable for rebound and preload. 310 mm petal rotors are semi-floating which are attached to radially mounted Tokico monobloc 4-piston callipers at the front and a single 250 mm petal disc with a single-piston at the rear.
Changes to the powerplant include a revised air intake, airbox resonator, camshaft and ECU to provide smoother fuelling and ignition timing. New headers and a ton of revision has been to the exhaust system too. The engine is an inline-four, DOHC, 1043 cc unit producing 142 PS of power at 10,000 RPM and 111 Nm of torque at a low 7300 RPM. The engine has two large throttle bodies to add to the fun response which Kawasaki claims. Kawasaki also says they have worked on the soundtrack of the vehicle which sounds like a animal howling. All this force is transferred through a 6-speed gearbox which has shorter gearing for maximum street friendly nature. The motorcycle has a heavy kerb weight of 220 kgs without ABS and 221 kgs with ABS. The chassis is a twin-tube aluminium frame with revised suspension settings on both sides.
All this makes the new Kawasaki Z1000 stand bang on against the new Ducati Monster 1200 which has also been unveiled at EICMA. The Kawasaki Z1000 will also come with a special edition at the time of launch which is an exclusive paint job. Kawasaki did say that a street-friendly litre class bike has a good place in the Indian market. We think this model is certainly India bound via the CBU route.
