THE MOST NOTABLE SINGLE ADVANCEMENT IN THIS CENTURY SO FAR, REGARDING POTENTIAL FOR PERFORMANCE AND EMISSION CONTROL, CAME AT THE END OF 2014 WHEN KAWASAKI LAUNCHED THE WORLD’S FIRST SUPERCHARGED PRODUCTION MOTORCYCLE.

The Honda CB750 Four, introduced in a wave of nearhysteria in 1969, offered the biggest single advancement in engine technology for mass-produced motorcycles up to that point. It led to the creation of the Universal Japanese Motorcycle, or UJM, a pejorative invented in the late 1970s to describe the enormous wave of similar Japanese motorcycles that followed, all with four-cylinder engines mounted across the frame. The inline-four is still the most popular engine layout today, particularly with the Japanese, and since then, through evolution, it’s gained dual overhead camshafts, liquid cooling, fuel injection and advanced electronic engine management systems. The most notable single advancement in this century so far, regarding potential for performance and emission control, came at the end of 2014 when Kawasaki launched the world’s first supercharged production motorcycle. The 1,000 cc Kawasaki H2 and its brutally fast 360 km/h racetrackonly H2-R sibling were built in relatively low numbers and thus expensive, so everybody sat back and waited to see what turbo or supercharged model would be next to arrive.

BOOSTED

Around 30% of cars today use forced induction engines, so after Kawasaki’s giant step forward in this direction, it seemed