Katana!

[Nigel]

FB_IMG_1514052353568.jpg (53.12 KiB) Viewed 3527 times

Oh yes please

[chunky butt]

Wow ...Like that little baby

[sprintster]

Nice job.You can tell straight away it's a Katana...it was just 30 years ahead of it's time!

[Flintlock]

A liquid cooled Katana? Still very nice

[diggermanbob]

That would be very nice for Christmas , might put a photo of that in the wife's Christmas card

[daveuprite]

Been a long time coming - Suzuki talked about a new K ages ago.

Bit disappointing I think. Rear seat unit doesn't really work for me. That number plate mud guard thing is horrid. The bars aren't low enough, probably because they know their middle-age customers now all have bad backs and dodgy wrists!. They've lost that distinctive Target Design Katana 'bike eating the front wheel' look that the original had. The front is too stubby - not sharp enough - and the bike is too upright. Katanas were long and low. It looks a bit closer to the pop-up headlamp 750 Kat than the earlier 1000SZ and 1100 bikes.

Of course it'll ride and handle a hundred times better than the old bikes (not difficult), but considering the K was all about styling, I think they could have done better. Kawasaki have made a better job of the new Z900RS IMHO, which really recreates the look of the original.

[lmac]

Been a long time coming - Suzuki talked about a new K ages ago.

Bit disappointing I think. Rear seat unit doesn't really work for me. That number plate mud guard thing is horrid. The bars aren't low enough, probably because they know their middle-age customers now all have bad backs and dodgy wrists!. They've lost that distinctive Target Design Katana 'bike eating the front wheel' look that the original had. The front is too stubby - not sharp enough - and the bike is too upright. Katanas were long and low. It looks a bit closer to the pop-up headlamp 750 Kat than the earlier 1000SZ and 1100 bikes.

Of course it'll ride and handle a hundred times better than the old bikes (not difficult), but considering the K was all about styling, I think they could have done better. Kawasaki have made a better job of the new Z900RS IMHO, which really recreates the look of the original.

Your not keen then? .

[daveuprite]

Been a long time coming - Suzuki talked about a new K ages ago.

Bit disappointing I think. Rear seat unit doesn't really work for me. That number plate mud guard thing is horrid. The bars aren't low enough, probably because they know their middle-age customers now all have bad backs and dodgy wrists!. They've lost that distinctive Target Design Katana 'bike eating the front wheel' look that the original had. The front is too stubby - not sharp enough - and the bike is too upright. Katanas were long and low. It looks a bit closer to the pop-up headlamp 750 Kat than the earlier 1000SZ and 1100 bikes.

Of course it'll ride and handle a hundred times better than the old bikes (not difficult), but considering the K was all about styling, I think they could have done better. Kawasaki have made a better job of the new Z900RS IMHO, which really recreates the look of the original.

Your not keen then? .

Just a bit disappointed. I had a 1000SZ for a while back in the late eighties. It was crap to ride, lumbering and far too heavy, though it could be shuffled along with enough effort. But the bike was all about looking different from the normal GS / GSX range. It was a dramatic styling exercise. There really wasn't any other reason for it, because it didn't handle or go any better than a GSX1100, and by that time other sports bikes were beginning to emerge that did the job much better. So you basically fell in love with it because of how it looked. To me a modern day Katana should do the same. It should look dramatic, like it's moving fast even when it's stood still. (Actually Suzuki diluted the look themselves back in the 80s. The 550 and 650 Kats were very watered down and the pop-up light version wasn't quite right).

I'm sure the Katana in the pic above will be great to own, easy to ride quite fast and capable at everything. But you can get all those characteristics in loads of street bikes. It's just lacking that jaw-dropping style that a Katana should have.

[stinkwheels]

give me the original anytime , I still have a gsx1100 efe which I butchered for the 1/4 mile about 20 years ago.

[daveuprite]

give me the original anytime , I still have a gsx1100 efe which I butchered for the 1/4 mile about 20 years ago.

Yeah they make a great looking drag bike don't they?

I quite like some of the modified bikes people have tried over the years, e.g. GSXR1100 engine, monoshock rear, USD front end etc.

I wonder what happened to the idea of a straight 6 Katana that was floated a few years back...