Z900 - then and now
Remembranceof Things Fast, Forty Years On
Rod Ker looks back at the famous Kawasaki and revisits it now
CAN IT REALLY BE 40 YEARS SINCE my youthful self and old school pal, Pete, borrowed a sparkling Kawasaki Z900 and terrorised the Midlands, taking photos along the way? Yes, I'm afraid it can, which makes me feel older than Methuselah's grandfather.
The black & white photographic masterpiece of bike reflected in a large puddle was shot in 1979, using a primitive device called a 35mm film camera. For younger readers, perhaps I need to explain that in those days the only digitals we had were the things attached to our hands and feet (or not, if you rode a BSA650).
Taking photos was an involved business then, starting with buying a roll of film for the equivalent of about
£25 in 2020 terms, then paying about the same again to have the images developed and printed, which took a week. After a second visit to Boots, you handed over another £10 in return for up to 36 glossy pieces of paper (or a bijou box of transparencies, aka 'slides').
It was quite likely that a significant proportion of these would be overexposed, or under-exposed, or out of focus, or be pictures of someone's nostrils that had strayed into the frame. You get the picture (or often didn't).
The alternative for true enthusiasts was to set up a darkroom in your shed and spend a few hours breathing chemicals that almost certainly caused
serious medical conditions. The DIYroute, theoretically, gave an expert the chance of manipulating the image.
It can be revealed that the lower part of the Z900blow-up seen here was deliberately left to stew in the developing fluid for longer than the upper part, hence its contrast and clarity. Or maybe we turned the bike and camera upside down? No, that would be silly.
To go boldly back to 1979, the photo then disappeared, presumed dead, for about 25 years, until it was unearthed in the back of a picture frame containing another great masterpiece, credited to some French geezer called Monet. In the light of a 2004 day, a flood of Kawasaki
900 nostalgia gushed forth, including the mystery of where exactly the photos were taken.
A plan was hatched. How about a
1979 re-enactment, riding the same bike on the same roads to a similar puddle and taking the same shot for posterity, then writing a story about it for then magazine, Classic Mechanics? Good idea, but various snags immediately surfaced, including the impossibility of acquiring the very same Z900.While Kawasaki's King has a good survival rate, tracking down a particular bike without a registration as guidance would be a tall order, even for Inspector Morse.
Instead, I could substitute a Z900 of the same vintage. By a quirk of fate I live not far from the Classic Bikes emporium, which happens to specialise in the big
Kawasaki fours and usually has about 25 in stock. Better still, most of these need test riding before going out to new owners, which killed at least two proverbial birds with one stone ...
As with the 1979jaunt, it was also fortunate that Summer was with us in 2004, so no weather issues, in theory. As a consequence, however, this meant the required large puddle was tricky to organise and beyond the control of chief Zl designer, Gyoichi Inamura. We must accept that even the mighty Kawasaki Heavy Industries couldn't guarantee the weather, but for once a flash thunderstorm or a portable flood would have been welcome.
Inevitably, shortage of time also meant that 1979's official photographer wasn't available 25 years later. At the time, family commitments took precedence over searches for lost youth on motorcycles.
Looking back, I mused on how it was that so many people had mobile phones and email, yet you still couldn't contact them. Bring back the carrier pigeon, I say. In 1979 'cell phones' were a dot on the future horizon, of course.
For further scene-setting contrast, it seems incredible now, but 1979 was the year Mrs M.Thatcher took up residence as Prime Minister, handbag primed for action. Although she was pushed out of office in 1990 and died in 2013, I'm sure she would have been thrilled to bits by another mention in a classic motorcycle magazine. 2004's PMwas 'young' Tony Blair, who had been in position for seven years by then and outstayed his welcome, to coin an understatement.
Among other things, the Conservatives
A plan was hatched. How about a 1979 re-enactment, riding the same bike on the same roads to a similar puddle and taking the same shot for posterity, then writing a story about it?'
had promised lots of new roads, many that had been planned decades ago, often going back to before WW2. Great, but by the time plans had been put into action, it was known that traffic volumes just increased to fill the new spaces. More on that later.
So,back in 2004 again, I picked up the nominated 2900 and headed south on a balmy day, appreciating once more the big Zed's convenience as a mode of transport, rather than just the fastest motorcycle on the planet. Thanks to smaller 26mm carbs and a more stifled exhaust, the figures were slightly down on the first model of 1972,which clocked a standing quarter in 12.Ss and boasted a top whack of 130mph plus. Not that it mattered too much after the rest of the Japanese big four and the Italian squad had introduced faster (super)bikes in the later 70s (Ducati 900SS, Laverda Jota and Mato Guzzi Le Mans), against all the odds.
Whatever, the 2900 is generally considered as superior to the Zl, with better handling and a smoother engine. Both are pretty coarse compared with more modern straight fours, though.
None of your contra-rotating balancers here, m'lad, so those secondary vibes feed through to the rider at higher revs. Old King Zed's limit was about 9000rpm, a tame effort compared with the later crop of 10,000+rpm screamers.
The 2004 story continued:
'...Pause to fill up with unleaded costing as much per litre as a 2-Star gallon did when the 2900 was new, then out through the town. Plenty has changed. Tu.riceas many sets of traffic lights and roundabouts; new houses everywhere; sprawling industrial estates; funny red cycle lanes that no one uses; half as many petrol stations; no big British car dealers; speed humps; chicanes; pedestrianised streets; railings to stop people walking into the road and killing themselves; traditional industry replaced by giant car parks; and DIYwarehouses. What a mess.
The biggest change is in traffic density, though. Even on a bike, it probably takes twice as long to get from one end of the town to the other now. But we made it eventually, emerging from the urban limit briefly before entering another 40mph zone almost immediately.
A time-warped 1979 rider might have then been confused by the dangerous behaviour of his fellow travellers at this point, who were all suddenly slowing down for no good reason. Yes, we were in Gatsoland, where nearly everybody sticks exactly to the posted limit, even if it means panic braking and looking anywhere except at the road. Whatever George Orwell had predicted, the idea of being watched over by cameras would have seemed fanciful by road users of the Seventies ...
Fiddle the figures a bit and you can see that I was moaning about the same sort of issues. Traffic was bad in 2004, but look at it now. OMG,as they didn't say then! My remark that it probably took twice as long to get through town was all too true, but from around 2010 onwards the roads had reached saturation point, thanks to councils with a mission to build as many houses as possible, without thinking much about infrastructure.
Back to this year's re-enactment; having reached the town centre seizure there's nowhere to go.Just too many vehicles. Even a pushbike can hardly get through. I eventually had to escape the bottlenecks by going in almost the wrong direction and do an extensive loop adding miles to the journey, on potholed lanes intended for horse-drawn traffic. And this in the middle of the day, the quieter time, allegedly.
On a more trivial note, while the wide Kawhorn handlebars aid slow-speed travel, they are in danger of clipping mirrors if you do try to filter traffic lanes; definitely a silly way to fall off. Especially so on an absolutely mint 2900 wearing the last set of genuine OEexhausts in the universe, a contributing factor in its valuation somewhere around £20k ...
A lot of money, you say? Not really for a machine that's been painstakingly re-built, taking many expert hours. In 1979 a secondhand 2900 went for about £1000, a few hundred less that its cost new. By 2004 the going rate was more like £5000 for a decent specimen with original parts, the 900 now being established as 'classic'.
At the time, plenty of other Japanese bikes, including the Honda CB750,were still waiting to be appreciated. The snag was that in the 1980s many UK market Z900s were customised, wearing four-into-one exhausts, different paint and had lost their intake plumbing to make way for K&Ns. Apart from making a lot of noise, 'tuned' engines of this type usually ran badly and produced less power, hence the rush to import standard bikes from overseas.
As time marches on, the trend is for superficially similar bikes to command very different prices, based on whether they come with sought-after and rare parts. The original OEpipes on the test victim illustrate the point. Aficionados will also note the 'KZ900' badges, shorter rear mudguard and single front disc of US models.
While I was busily going round in circles, I was reminded of one comparatively novel feature of 21st
Century travel - the stop-start engine. Stalling in traffic used to be bad news, but modern cars have a system that does it deliberately after due analysis of the vehicle's operating mode.
At its most basic level, the engine will be stopped when the car has been static for a certain time, so saving fuel. At least, that's the idea, but the bottom line is affected so much by driving conditions and driver style that the true picture is hard to guess. What we do know is that cars are becoming larger and heavier all the time, which is definitely not a Green thing, or planet saver.
Stop-start would no doubt have seemed a complete nonsense to a 1970s rider. The Honda 750 Four gave electric feet to the masses, yes, but a large proportion of bikes on the road still had to be kicked into life. Can you imagine some unfortunate soul on a BSA500 single trying to negotiate jams with an engine that falls silent after a few seconds, then needs 26 sweaty kicks to re-start?
On a historical note, after a brief period with emergency kickstarts stashed under the seat, manufacturers gave way to the inevitable and deleted the entire
'The first model of 1972 clocked a standing quarter in 12.Ss and boasted a top whack of 130mph plus'
mechanism. In Kawasaki's case this came about after the 2900 had turned into the Zl000 and its derivatives, losing two of its bugles - and some of its reliability, unfortunately.
Apart from stop-start, over the last 15 years our roads have been invaded on a small scale (so far) by hybrids and 100%electric vehicles. Again, this may or may not help to save the planet in the long term, but on an everyday basis they have a negative effect on road safety. As a pedestrian, I've had a few near misses with stealth cars that creep up as I step off the kerb.
Then there are SMART,but dim motorways that seem to go directly against common sense. The planners already know, but that doesn't stop them from continuing to convert the MGin the Midlands. I'd certainly avoid them in an old vehicle, but then new vehicles can just stop dead, so that will make me take to the cart tracks again.
My present-day meanders were curtailed by the weather. Occasional bursts of watery sun faded and I was suddenly aware that my mission to take a repeat photo was in jeopardy.
Well, Cannock, actually, which was mainly a mining tovrn in the 70s, but
,has now spread over the slag heaps and
re-invented itself as a hive of high-tech industry, My destination was the adjoining Chase, an AONB(Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) that was originally a William the Conk royal hunting ground. The present Queen gave up on that sort of thing a few years back, so now it's probably known mostly as a mountain biking centre, with no internal combustion engines allowed.
Rumbling around the area found a few prominent puddles, but not in the exact 1979/2004 location, which has been modified by the people who maintain the Chase's natural beauty. There's just about enough space left to wheel in some Kawasaki natural beauty. Sadly, fading light defied even 21st Century digital cameras to take artistic pictures. In fact, it's hard to tell the difference between colour and black & white!
The photo shoot confirmed the Z900's practicality once again, with a sidestand that worked on soft surfaces. Simple things can make a big difference, as any simple Ducati owner (me, for instance) who's watched their bike topple off its stand can confirm .
Forty years ago I didn't care much about practicality. Posing in a 1979 puddle, I was probably concerned most about whether the 900 would do 130mph, as
'Then there are SMART,but dim motorways that seem to go directly against common sense. The planners already know, but that doesn't stop them from continuing to convert the M6 in the Midlands'
attained by ace road testers. By 2004 I had grown up slightly and realised Iwasn't Bazza Sheene incarnate, so speed was of relatively minor importance. Note that Iwas already moaning about the state of the roads and other people's bad driving. The latent Victor Meldrew was taking hold!
Fast forward 15 years to 2020 and my sensibilities have changed again.
Sorry to be maudlin, but gazing into the camera lens, I reflected that a large number of those who were part of my previous world are no longer with us, including a depressing number of fellow motorcyclists.
The star of the story is still very much with us, however. Launched in 1972 and now approaching its half century, Kawasaki's iconic, dohc four, is as good as ever. Better, in fact, if you buy a handbuilt example, as :f:, seen here. ·· ·
See you in ,
2030. Ci!illl '·,;:-,t
•f.