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Wishing you the best of luck on this quest
Dave

If the bike was indeed sold in Alabama,  you should be able to do a Title search at the Dept. of Motor Vehicles.

As Dave said,  Good Luck with your search!   Mike

A little added info,  the Kawasaki 900s 1973 thru 1975 are Z1s (Z1, Z1A and Z1B)  The 1976 model was slightly restyled and civilized and became the KZ900.

Thank you so much! I'm looking forward to it! 

Oh okay. I'll try that. I have several friends in law enforcement and am back in law enforcement myself now but can't (well...shouldn't) use national registration databases to look it up. They frown on that kinda thing which is a bummer because that would make it so much easier. And thanks for the tip on the differing year models and terminology. That will come in handy looking stuff up on it. Appreciate all of you!

+1 on Krazee1. Definitely give it a try. Here in Michigan though if the plates and registration have been idle for X amount of years the information gets scrubbed from the system. 

Good luck, it would be a great success story to have your fathers bike back. 

That's an early Z1B, probably an August/74 build date.  I'm aware of a data base with a partial list of remaining Z1 bikes.  I checked the data base and this bike is not listed.  A lot of Z1's were sold overseas, particularly to Japan, but also to Europe, so the bike may not be in the USA any longer.  For what it's worth, I owned a Z1B back in the day and tried to find it without any success, so here is wishing you...

Good luck with your search.

I'm trying to find my dad's old 1975 Kawasaki KZ900. He took it on his senior trip from Alabama to Colorado and I would love to purchase and restore it. His dad bought it for him under the condition he would have to sell it when he got back home. Any help would be awesome and very much appreciated! Here's what I know about it. This was obtained from a service card he's been keeping in his wallet since who knows when.

What year did he buy the bike ?
What year did he sell the bike ?

Oh okay. I'll try that. I have several friends in law enforcement and am back in law enforcement myself now but can't (well...shouldn't) use national registration databases to look it up. They frown on that kinda thing which is a bummer because that would make it so much easier. And thanks for the tip on the differing year models and terminology. That will come in handy looking stuff up on it. Appreciate all of you!

Police are not supposed to use the lein machine for personal use.
Someone who is interested in purchasing the bike can legally request the information.
 

wrote:

Police are not supposed to use the lein machine for personal use.
 

Legality and access issues aside, I'm wondering if state or national databases would actually contain Z1 owner data.  It seems possible that anything older than 1981, when they established a standardized 17-character VIN format, might not be available.

I know the last time I transferred a title for a KZ the local office did the entire process on paper and then mailed the forms, because there was no way to enter a non-standard VIN into the computer.

Given how much time has passed since the 17-character VIN format was implemented, and the difficulty of supporting non-standard VINs in computer databases, it seems very likely that this information has not been digitized. 

 

My jurisdiction has no problem with Z1 serial numbers.

This will be looking for the needle in a haystack for sure.  Several states that have no action on a given VIN will purge it from their system after several years.  Then the only way to check a number then is to go to the main DMV office and have them do a hand check which usually results in a big goose egg.  As more TIME system connected computers made their way into patrol cars it became obvious that running people or vehicles had to be closely monitored.  Rules were laid down that officers were not to do random checks especially for personal reasons and doing so resulted in some pretty harsh penalties.  It was enough to scare my little fingers off the keyboard!  You did not want to get caught doing stupid stuff on the TIME system back then.  I assume it is still the same today.  Car to car messaging was also closely watched, which is why we all had Nextel cell phones with DC communications.

Rick H.

Likely it’s in Japan already