Japanese motorcycles from the ‘60s and ‘70s are these days very collectable, three-cylinder motorcycles have always been sought-after, and three-cylinder two-stroke motorcycles from any era have always been high in desirability for those who treasure the machines that everybody loved but relatively few got to own. Between 1968 and 1980 Kawasaki built very quick roadgoing two-stroke triples displacing 250, 350, 400, 500 and 750 cc, and they’re all much lusted after today, but the rarest of all are the factory racers that went like stink and won races, despite often mediocre handling and, in the early days, brakes that, well, didn’t do what their name implied. British-turned American collector David Crussell started his collection of Kawasaki triples at the age of 17 in the UK, sold off the lot when he moved to the USA in 1992, bought the first bike in his new American collection – a 750cc H2 – the day after he arrived in the States, and today he has about 24 vintage two-stroke road and race bikes, most of them Kawasaki triples. He harvests air cooled-road bikes and production racers, liquid cooled factory racebikes, drag bikes and modified street bikes wherever he can, and he and his wife, Lorraine have them all on display inside his modest Californian home. The ex-factory bikes have cast-iron credentials and very rare lightweight magnesium components, while Crussell shows that he’s not just a collector by winning American classic racing championships and contesting the Isle of Man classic TT in his spare time. To see Ed Milich’s fascinating story in Motorcyclist Online visit HERE and to see and hear our own silver-haired four-times Kawasaki World Champion Kork Ballington riding the ex-Greg Hansford 750 H2R briskly in Australia last year click HERE
by Gavin Foster