I
t must have been the mid 70s, my first ever visit
to Manfeild race track near Feilding. I thought
I was a young teenager but perhaps I wasn’t...
anyway, I loved all things ‘motorbike’, and I still
do. I was wandering down the dummy grip
and right there in front of me were two of the
biggest, most rebellious yet beautiful machines
ever conceived by production motorcycling. I
could hardly believe it, two! I remember one had
a flag painted on the tank, and I thought it was
the coolest bike I’d ever seen... and that both
were huge. I thought I’d probably never ride one,
or be able to afford one, in a million years.
Of course, I’m talking about the Kawasaki Z1
900 – to my mind the original ‘Superbike’ and an
absolute legend of motorcycling. Now, well over
40 years later, not only have I ridden the all new
‘retro’ Z900 RS, I’ve also, finally, ridden the original
– but not just any bloody original either – a hot-
rodded “Croz” special that is just dripping in cool.
Back to the present, parking the Z900RS next
to a Z1 900 at the Croz’s workshop wonderland, it
struck me how similar they looked. Kawasaki has
done an incredible job in maintaining the historical
look with the new RS but, make no mistake, it
is a thoroughly modern machine in everything
but styling. A closer look reveals a quite different
machine with a liquid-cooled engine, despite the
36 KIWI RIDER