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Kawasaki's Muscular Monarch
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Z1
Michael Schulte
07/01/2006
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Photography by Kevin Wing
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The year 1967 was awash in monumental events. Summer of
Love bromides aside, the image of Hendrix immolating his Strat at Monterey is a
visual time stamp of a convulsive year. Change and upheaval, among other things,
were in the air. In the world of motorcycle design, a revolution began gestating
under the radar that would rumble the cycle culture like a stack of 100-watt
Marshall amps. Sam Tanegashima, Kawasaki’s double-naught engineer, began work on
the cryptically designated “New York Steak” project. Tanegashima’s mission was
to craft a visionary super-cruiser, a powerful bike that would ease comfortably
through urban traffic, yet be capable of grinding pavement into grit on the open
road. The Z1 was to be an indomitable Goliath before which all others would
wither, a “King Motorcycle”, in the words of Kawasaki.The New York Steak
project labored through ’67 and into ’68, designing a four-stroke, four-cylinder
engine. While Kawasaki was known primarily as a two-stroke manufacturer that had
done quite well with its performance-oriented two-strokes, tightening EPA
regulations hung over that technology like an inversion layer. In 1963, Kawasaki
had acquired Japan’s oldest motorcycle works, the Meguro factory, whose
four-stroke production ability helped put the ambitious N.Y. Steak plans on
Kawasaki’s front burner.
 The road to innovation is a perilous one, and for a
while it looked as though Kawasaki’s revolution would not be televised. In
October 1968, Honda dropped a four-cylinder bomb of its own at the Tokyo Motor
Show, the knockout CB750KO, beating Kawasaki to the punch. As Honda’s October
Surprise was being unveiled across the Pacific, the rudimentary mock up of the
twin-cam Z1 sat in Sam Tanegashima’s West Coast studio apartment. A Teletype
issued the dire news, “…drastic review on our product inevitable.” (Click image to enlarge)
Dazed,
but not confused, by Honda’s suckerpunch, Kawasaki regrouped and assembled a
design team in April 1970 to focus on the redeveloped Z1. While seeking to avoid
also-ran status in the wake of the CB’s ambush, Kawasaki held fast to the Z1’s
basic constitution. The bike would remain a four cylinder and employ a disc
brake. The bike would handle well and be emissions friendly. Most importantly,
the Z1 would eat the CB750 alive and floss with its spokes.
In early 1972,
test bikes were sent to the U.S. for the express purpose of being beaten within
an inch of their lives by a ballsy gang of Kawasaki leathernecks, and beat them
they did. Post-mayhem teardowns at Kawasaki’s California outpost revealed the Z1
was good to go. Kawasaki’s reinvigorated efforts were about to pay off.
 Euro-spec dual discs grace the front wheel. (Click image to enlarge)
In
1973, the new kid on the block was a 903cc menace to society that would scatter
street football games and send sidewalk surfers diving off clay wheels into
hedges. With brutish, swooping lines and quad pipes clutching a magnificent
engine like a black heart in an iron fist, the Z1 was an archetype of menacing
style. Natty in its distinctive candy tone brown/orange color scheme, the big
Kawasaki looked like a heavyweight boxer out for a night on the town in a root
beer suit.
The impact was immediate. The big Z won hearts and
minds in the press and on the street. Nothing like it had ever been seen before.
Kawasaki began rolling Zs off the line at rate of 1,500 per month. At $1,895
($8,400 in today’s dollars), they disappeared so fast that even Kawasaki
employees couldn’t bag them through the employee discount program. Sales
surpassed the CB750, whose conservative styling had begun to grow grey at the
temples by 1973. There wasn’t much else in the way of competition for the Z1. No
other bike came close to the power, reliability and brute style offered by the
world’s newly reigning superbike. The Z1’s introduction would retune Kawasaki’s
image from a producer of smoke-belching two-stroke triples to a builder of
muscular, sophisticated four-stroke motorcycles. The Zed was the alpha bike and
the road lay open before it.
Upright was the sport standard in 1976.
The focus of the adulation heaped on the Z1 was
the mouthwatering 66mm x 66mm 903cc engine. If reasonable men can describe a
block of metal and chrome pipes as sexy, the Z’s powerplant was a dual-cam
Raquel Welch. With black-finished castings, polished side covers and chrome
accents, the Z’s motor was unlike anything previously seen on a production bike.
The engine leans eagerly forward into the downward sweep of the beefy exhaust
pipes to create room for the quartet of Mikuni carburetors mounted behind.
Kawasaki’s designers were insistent that the engine look impressive from the
Z1’s inception. Their exertions to that end paid off handsomely. Big and wide,
the motor was designed to accomplish a lot with little effort. On that count, as
well, it was a success. The Steak’s double overhead camshafts push the protein
directly to the valve stems without meddlesome rockers or pushrods getting in
the way. The original Z1 engine put out 82 hp @ 8,500 rpm, which it was capable
of sustaining over long stretches without roasting the innards. This was in an
era when 50 horses was a considerable stable. Kawasaki realized that while most
American riders might not ever use that much brawn, they wanted to know it was
available.
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