Reading between the lines…
For those of us who like to read between the lines, second guess at what is meant and sometimes even get things totally wrong, the speech given by President of the Kawasaki Motorcycle and Engine Company Mr Kenjii Tomida at the EICMA show was full of promise. “You have all seen with Ninja H2 and Ninja H2R a demonstration of how Kawasaki can harness internal skills such as those of aerospace, gas turbine divisions. This unique Kawasaki engineering and technology approach will continue – in fact you can see an example of it with our new Balanced Supercharged Engine.” Nothing too ambiguous about that, or with his statement that the company is working at full throttle on machine development and product launches, especially as he announced that 2017 and 2018 will see some ingenuous usage of entirely new technology. “We have at least 12 new models planned for the 2017 and 2018 seasons. I cannot give further details today, but I hope this is enough for all our guests here to understand the commitment and focus on the future that exists within Kawasaki now…”
Hmm.. And then he said something about the H2 and H2R becoming reference points for the future. Mr Tomida stopped short of providing details of exactly where the company is heading, but revealed diagrams of Kawasaki’s second concept bike within a single month.
“Kawasaki’s thinking does not end with Spirit Charger (revealed at the Tokyo Motor Show) – in fact it is just the beginning… Here at EICMA Kawasaki would like to share another concept with you – the SC-02 “Soul Charger”. We have not decided which capacity class Soul Charger may be positioned in….also whether it is to simply remain a styling study or to make it into production.. What we can reveal is that it is a downsized design showing how Kawasaki supercharger technology is scalable.… I hope you can all understand from what I have shared with you today; Kawasaki is very much a company with a valuable past. A company that values the present and looks forward with optimism to the future – please join us on our exciting journey.”
Roll on 2017 and 2018!
by Gavin Foster.