WOW, that's one gorgeous bike - especially for the touring bagger ... "police-STYLE" model at that. Gotta be the choice of the TANK 'cause that makes all the difference in the world - But it pulls together all of the other elements somehow, the bags and the windscreen, heck even the heavy-ass 7-spoke cast/mag wheels.
I'd love to take one of these old plexi screens and cut it down to a fly-screen style, possibly via moving the headlight hole up higher to make best use of the bends & curves - gotta be a heat moulded screen and not a bent/stressed-mounted flat panel, of course - But yeah, the end GOAL being to produce something like the little plexi screen on the Ducati Sport-Classic GT1000 Touring - It would take some cutting & sanding, then edge scraping and "flame-buffing" the edges of the plexiglas - but the main thing is cutting the damn thing down to size.
Can you visualize it?
I'm picturing an older touring UJM - this, OR my current Honda project "CB900K0 Bol Bomber"
(((That's whatcha call an '82 CB900F Bol D'Or based homage to the '65 CB450K0 Black Bomber - wire rims in some truly juicy sizes and profiles, enough to build a good 7 different pairs of wheels each a different configuration from the last, but settling for a first pair in 3.50x16" Super-Akront up front with 4.25x18" Akront rear- plus the CB1100R alloy tank polished up all "toaster-tank" style - "Duck-Tail" style seat from the CB750K0 Sand-Cast, GL1500 fork, VF1000R adjustable clip-on bars, etc etc)))
OR a KZ version of which, of course - ANY of the big UJM powerplants would be suitable for a build like this, heck even a GL1200 Gold-Wing "Naked Gold-Wings" style of course, heck all sorts of different permutations on the so-called "Universal" Japanese Motorcycle or rather, late '70s - early '80s SUPERBIKE, would be suitable for a project like I'm visualizing here:
That low Duck GT1000 shaped yet vintage period-correct PLEX FLYI-SCREEN, somewhat aerodynamic hard luggage of the 1970s variety - But with rear-sets and clip-man club-on handlebars, the throttle modified to function like the CB900F2"Sport-Kit"type throttle (CBX550F has it - check it out) but in an alloy clam-shell case that is, modified via welded lumps of alloy on the standard housings then drilled and tapped for cables etc etc - Basically everything LOOKS 1970s but functionally we're talking about 1990s SPORT-TOURING in the areas of ergonomics and running gear ie embiggened brake rotors and a late model fork - for the Kawasaki I'd suggest the GPZ1000R fattest thickest type of late-model anti-dive Ninja fork, - late model alloy swing-arm (but still twin-shock of course) etc etc etc - It would be kinda like a proper ENDURANCE RACER sort of Superbike - Godier Genoud but without the hideous lime-green day-glo paint, more like classy 70s Touring-rig paint and decals, just like we see here on THIS bike - And endurance racer with hard bags and passenger capacity, plexi-screen instead of huge bubble fairing, etc etc -
A portmanteau of all these different styles - Endurance/Superbike, '90s Sport-Touring Crotch-Rocket - AND the '70s TOURING rig "bagger".
Wire-spoke rims of course. I've got pairs like 2.50x18" with 3.50x18", 3.00x18" & 4.25x18", 3.50x16" & 4.25x18", 2.50x18" & 4.25x17", 3.50x16" & 5.00x17", 2.50x18" & 3.00x18", 2.50x16" & 3.50x16", 3.00x16" & 3.50x16" and 2.50x16" & 3.00x16" - all of 'em can be built simultaneously with this pile of rims I've got on hand here, and all alloy, about 50% of 'em NOS and 50% used but good condition - (((Plus a bunch of cool Unobtainium stuff for the COMSTAR half of my "Re-Invent The Wheel" project))) They're all either for my daughter's "KZ440LOL" and/or my "CB900K0 Bol Bomber" - But obviously a lot f this stuff could be translated over to any other bike of the same era and maybe ten years in either direction. With the "Weld-Up HUB" method, proven on the CB900C Custom shaft-drive wire-spoke chopper built by one "6pkrunner" from the
www.cb750c.com four-um, it's possible to put wire-spoke rims on ANYTHING and yet to keep the OEM hub core and brakes sprockets axle spacers etc etc - So I really DO mean "ANY" bike from ten years in either direction here....
Could you picture it though? Obviously this here bike is the template for the KZ1000 version of which - mainly the tank choice the paint scheme, the seat cover style, etc - the luggage is just about dead-on perfect too.
Not to mention the luggage rack, come to think of it.
Yanno, Kawasaki had some of the most beautiful luggage racks from ANY era - the KZ400D-Deluxe had the loveliest rack of all with the H1/H2 series bringing up a close second.
Luggage racks built from all welded all tubular chromed-steel and with the little knobs welded along the undersides of the rails just perfect for bungee cords to hook onto. But yeah it's about the parallel tubular rails running lengthwise, the mount being made of integral bent tubes, very simply mounted without any adjustable parts just bespoke to the model itself. Heck gimme the right book rack and I'll mod the BIKE to bolt up to IT - Know the type that I mean?
And so I picture a luggage rack like that, maybe even a bigger one running behind a solo front seat section, with a removable pillion-pad on top of IT, just like a '60s TRAIL-bike. And then an Endurance-Racer style boxy fiberglass tail cowl covering over THAT - and the box would of course also double as a storage compartment or glove box etc - hence the bigger the tail cowl the better, such that the Godier-Genoud Endurance-Racer look is encouraged to it's very utmost extreme expressions of which....
Can you dig it? I realize that some of this stuff isn't gonna be as LIGHT-WEIGHT as you'd want on an Endurance Racer, especially the layers of rack/pillion/top-box and all ancillary hardware thereof. And the aerodynamics of the compact cut-down plexi-fairing ain't the best slipstream design out there on the market. Might even be a bit confusing, visually speaking, to relate the miniature plexi fly-screen with the huge tail-cowl style top-box.
But it would KICK friggin' BUTT on practically any other Cafe/Superbike, Sport-Touring Crotch-Rocket, AND/OR '70s Touring-Rig - and practically anything else for that matter. Even the CRUISERS if that's what you're into, 'cause the wide alloy wire-spoke rims and low-profile tires are gonna have so much vintage-ish cachet it will make the most full-dresser wire wheels off any other bike look HOKEY in comparison - It's sporty ergonomics and huge tank, uprated suspension & over-sized yet period-correct brakes are all gonna spell out how more awesome it is than all of the STARBUCKS-RACER Cafe builds out there. And it's authentic bonafide real period-correctness and "essence of it's time" distillation of all those different bike style segments or genres, plus real bonafide authentic TRACK slash ROAD-racing aka Endurance pretensions, will blow away the most "pure" of the original Cafe Racers for that matter.
The UJM is at the nexus point of the old original thumper or twin engine "Classic" or "Vintage" bikes, and the CGI carved from plastic via laser on a shark's head type CROTCH-ROCKETS - a changing of the guard if you will - and yet they've got 50% elements of each of these two schools of thought.
So why not confabulate some SYNTHESIS of all the different genres of UJM interpretation/individualism - the rock-&-roll AND the Disco, the old & the new the urban and the rural, track and street, short hopping commuting AND iron-butt distance-eating, wife hauling and/or picking up cute hitchhikers,
Heck - I can even picture this thing with a TRAILER HITCH - Just give it one of those old's-cool single-wheel trailers like you used to see on old CZ's back in the '50s - for the extra capacity yet slip-stream abiding.
And for the dashboard, I'd like to see an all analog set-up, but the dial gauges would be powered by the electric speedo and tacho clock innards, with magnetic pick-up "Hall-Effect" sensors only they're threaded down the length of a hollowed-out cable sheath into the body of a speedo drive with the worm-gear innards hacked out of it - LED bulbs inside of the OEM housings, miniature signals from brand-specific MINI-BIKE like the KR75 in the case of the Kawasaki, the "monkey" or gorilla in the case of the Honda - the dashboard would contain some type of old CB RADIO or 8-TRACK tape-deckl but just a hollowed-out housing with it's guts replaced by all of the mod-con stuff like the MP3 players or GPS mapping displays, cell-'phones & intercomms etc etc. All just to keep up the APPEARANCES of brand-specific vintage OEM period-correctness - If you get it right, you'll know 'cause Kawasaki or Honda would come up with a watered-down FACTORY CLONE sometime within the following five-ten years!
Seriously though, next time I buy a 2nd-hand bike I'm gonna be LOOKING for a plexi-screen & a bunch of hard-bagger gear....
-Sigh.
POST-SCRIPT:
Did anybody else notice that the KZ1000ST has these little alloy rear-set brackets, which have a 2nd cast un-hole shape, which you could feasibly drill-out and use as a new pivot-point for some DIY rear-sets? I just think it's interesting. SOMEBODY ought to try it out. The 2nd pivot hole kinda reminds me of the alloy rear-set brackets from the early '60s Honda CB72/CB77 Hawk/SuperHawk, where you can bump the entire foot controls fore & aft onto three pairs of mounting points. And in that truly efficient Honda style, they've got a "HIRTH" spline just like the Laverda "Jota" bars (actualy aftermarket parts made by RAASK but colloquially known as "Jota Bars" nevertheless. Well the KZ1000ST version might very well require entirely different pedals and pegs etc, But the CONCEPT remains the same!
Anybody tried a mod like that? IMHO it's what all of these Aluminum peg brackets were FOR in the first place! After all they're a fair bit heavier than the original welded-steel versions of the peg and passenger peg hangers....
-S.
