KZ650B1 found original owner.

Hi All, whilst doing research into my bikes past, I did some surfing to try an track down the original owner. A Success!!! 
The gentleman who purchased the bike was at that time working for Kawasaki R&D department in California designing components for the Kawasaki KZ1000P. He saw what he thought was a miniature Z1, and when questioned the engineer about it, found it was the new KZ650B1. He decided at that point he had to have one, and ordered a green one as soon as it was possible to get it. Day one of its launch and day 2 paid for it and rode it away from the dealership. He did a lot of touring on it around California and Oregon, and owned it for many years. He has sent me photos of it new, on trips and even the original sales receipt. What a great guy, and he is so impressed that it is alive and living in New Zealand.
 I am very lucky to find this gentleman, and that he had still got lots of information about the bike. 
Thought this story may be of interest to share.
Rich.
photo of bike brand new, 2nd October 1976.
 

Hi Rich.
Great story, thanks for sharing!

Awesome story! I'd like to find the original owner of my B1 and flog him with a fuel hose for modifying basically everything.   

That's Super Groovy Rich!! I'll bet that took a lot of leg work digging up all the necessary paperwork to get those results from soo far away! Got Your PM. Here's what i can offer, hopefully everything looks correct. It's for a KZ900 or.. While there are date/batch codes on these, they sometimes don't make sense. Similar to the coding on fork lowers, still a mystery. These 1/2" masters     are pretty common fare and i'll bet You could find one closer to you? 

My search for the original owner of mine was much simpler. Got up, looked in a mirror, there he was. 🤣

That looks perfect, no nothing this side, and stuff on eBay are really poor. I will pm you

Nice one Warren, not many people can say that!!