Kawasaki Heavy Industries Motorcycle & Engine

Kawasaki Heavy Industries Motorcycle & Engine is a division of Kawasaki Heavy

Indust ries that produces motorcycles, ATVs, ut ility vehicles, jet ski personal watercraft, and

general-purpose gasoline engines. Before the 2011 fiscal year it was called Consumer

Products & Machinery. Its slogan is "Let the good times roll!."

Motorcycles

Main article: Kawasaki motorcycles

Kawasaki's Aircraft Company began the development of a motorcycle engine in 1949. The development

was completed in 1952 and mass product ion started in 1953. The engine was an air-cooled, 148 cc, OHV,

four-stroke single cylinder with a maximum power of 4 PS (2.9 kW; 3.9 hp) at 4,000 rpm. In 1954 the

first complete Kawasaki Motorcycle was produced under the name of Meihatsu, a subsidiary of Kawasaki

Aircraft . In 1960 Kawasaki completed construct ion of a factory dedicated exclusively to motorcycle

product ion and bought Meguro Motorcycles.

All-Terrain Vehicles and utility vehicles

Kawasaki's first ATV was the three-wheeled KLT200, which debuted in 1981. Its first four-wheel ATV, the Bayou 185, was int roduced in 1985 and in 1989 its first model with four-wheel-drive, the Bayou 300 4x4. Today, Kawasaki’s ATV line-up includes a wide range of recreat ional and ut ility ATVs.

Kawasaki's MULE (Mult i-Use Light Equipment) ut ility vehicle combines an ATV with a pick-up t ruck, The first MULE was produced in 1988.

Watercraft

In 1973, Kawasaki int roduced a limited product ion of stand-up models as designed by the recognized

inventor of jet skis, Clayton Jacobsen II.[2] In 1976, Kawasaki then began mass product ion of the JS400-A.

JS400s came with 400 cc two-st roke engines and hulls based upon the previous limited release models. It became the harbinger of the success Jet -Skis would see in the market up through the 1990s. In 1986

Kawasaki broadened the world of Jet Skis by introducing a two person model with lean-in "sport" style

handling and a 650 cc engine, dubbed the X-2. Then in 1989, they int roduced their first two passenger "sitdown" model, the Tandem Sport (TS) with a step-through seat ing area. In 2003, Kawasaki celebrated the Jet Ski brand by releasing a special 30th anniversary edit ion of its current stand-up model, the SX-R, which has seen a revival of interest in stand-up jetskiing. The X-2 has also been updated, based on the SX-R plat form and re-released in Japan. Kawasaki cont inues to produce three models of sit -downs, including many four-stroke models. The four st roke engines have come on since the late 1990s; with the help of superchargers and the like the engines can output up to 250 horsepower (190 kW) as seen in the Kawasaki ultra 250x.

Jet Ski is the brand name of personal watercraft manufactured by Kawasaki. The name, however, has become a genericized t rademark for any

type of personal watercraft .

Racing

Kawasaki's first t it le was with Dave Simmonds in 1969 when they won the 125 cc World Championship.

Kawasaki dominated the 250 cc and 350 cc grand prix classes from 1978 to 1982 winning four t it les in

each category.

Kawasaki has also won several superbike racing championships. They won the rider's Superbike World

Championship in 1993 with Scot t Russell and several AMA Superbike Championships with riders such as

Eddie Lawson and Wayne Rainey. During the 1990s they also dominated the Endurance World

Championship.

With the int roduct ion of the four-stroke engines into MotoGP in 2002, Kawasaki decided to take part in

the new MotoGP World Championship. Kawasaki entered the championship in 2003 with 250 cc Grand Prix racer Harald Eckl's Team Eckl.

In 2007 Kawasaki split from Harald Eckl because of Eckl’s involvement with a compet itor's MotoGP act ivit ies, which forced Kawasaki to

terminate the relat ionship immediately.[3] Kawasaki formed Kawasaki Motors Racing, a European subsidiary of Kawasaki Heavy Indust ries

responsible for managing the racing act ivit ies of the MotoGP team and any other motorcycle racing act ivit ies Kawasaki may enter in the future.

For the first t ime since Kawasaki returned to the premier class of motorcycle racing, the team became a complete ‘in house’ factory team.

Kawasaki's t radit ional racing colour is green

On January 9, 2009, Kawasaki announced it had decided to "... suspend its MotoGP racing act ivit ies from 2009 season onward and reallocate

management resources more efficient ly". The company stated that it will cont inue racing act ivit ies using mass-produced motorcycles as well as

support ing general race oriented consumers.

Grand Prix motorcycle racing

Year    Champion            
            350 cc                  250 cc                    125 cc

1982    Anton Mang

1981    Anton Mang          Anton Mang

1980                                 Anton Mang

1979    Kork Ballington     Kork Ballington

1978    Kork Ballington     Kork Ballington

1969                                                                Dave Simmonds

Superbike World Championship

Year    Champion

1993    Scott Russell

AMA Superbike Championship

Year    Champion

1977    Reg Pridmore

1978    Reg Pridmore

1981    Eddie Lawson

1982    Eddie Lawson

1983    Wayne Rainey

1990    Doug Chandler

1992    Scott Russell

1996    Doug Chandler

1997    Doug Chandler

References

^ (Adobe PDF) Annual Report 2010 Year ended March 31, 2010 (http://www.khi.co.jp/english/ir/pdf/ar_2010.pdf), Kawasaki Heavy Industries, LTD, 31 March 2010, p. 22, ISSN 0287-1793 (http://www.worldcat.org/issn/0287-1793) , http://www.khi.co.jp/english/ir/pdf/ar_2010.pdf

^ Action, Johnny; Adams, Tania; Packer, Matt (2006). Origin of Everyday Things. Sterling Publishing. pp. 124. ISBN 1402743025.

^ "Kawasaki: A new beginning in 2007" (http://www.kawasaki-motogp.com/press/index.asp?saction=Article&sSection=press&id=490). kawasakimotogp.com. 2006-11-29. http://www.kawasaki-motogp.com/press/index.asp?saction=Article&sSection=press&id=490. Retrieved 2008-01-24.

External links

Kawasaki Consumer Products and Machinery Global Site (http://www.khi.co.jp/mcycle/eng/)

Kawasaki motorcycles (http://www.dmoz.org/Recreat ion/Motorcycles/Makes_and_Models/Kawasaki/) at the Open Directory Project

Kawasaki Consumer Products and Machinery Company

Type Division of Kawasaki Heavy

Industries

Headquarters Minato, Tokyo Japan

Chuo-ku, Kobe, Japan

Products Motorcycles, ATVs, utility

vehicles, personal watercraft,

general-purpose gasoline engines

Website Kawasaki Consumer Products and

Macchinery Global Site

(http://www.khi.co.jp/mcycle/eng/)

2006 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R

Kawasaki Jet Ski

2007 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-RR

Dual-sport   Super Sherpa KL250 KLR250 KLX250S KLR650 Sport     Ninja 250R Ninja ZX-2R/Ninja ZXR250       ZXR400 (L Model)     EX500/GPZ500/Ninja 500   ZX600C-E/Ninja ZX-6 ZX600J/Ninja ZX-6R     ZZR600 ZXR750 Ninja ZX-7R   GPZ900R         ZX900/Ninja ZX-9R Ninja ZX-10R     ZX12R/Ninja ZX-12R     Sport-Touring ZZR1100C/Ninja ZX-11C ZZR1100D/Ninja ZX-11D ZZR1200/ZX-12C ZZR1400/Ninja ZX-14 Touring GTR1000/Connie/Concours 1400GTR/Concours 14 Cruiser EL250   EL125/Eliminator 454 LTD   Vulcan EN500A     Vulcan VN500C   Vulcan VN750     Vulcan VN800A/Vulcan Classic VN800B     Vulcan VN900 Classic/VN900B MotoGP     Ninja ZX-RR