‘Far more than ’84’s fastest’

In just a few years the world went from naked twin shocks to this fully faired rocket…

The five-bike giant test on the Isle of Man for the November 1984 issue was one of the most glamorous Bike had ever done, and the GPZ900R was the undisputed winner. Kawasaki’s new 113bhp four was simply too fast, sophisticated and sweet-handling for BMW’S K100RS, Honda’s VF1000F, Laverda’s Jota and Yamaha’s FJ1100. That first Ninja – as it had soon become known, if not officially – was magical on the Island. I can still vividly recall screaming over the Mountain on it, hugely impressed by its stability as well as its speed, unsurprised that the Kawasaki had taken the first three places in the Production

TT a few months earlier.

And the GPZ was far more than simply 1984’s fastest bike. Launched just 11 years after the Z1 had established Kawasaki as a superbike manufacturer, the Ninja began an era of liquid-cooled, 16-valve straight fours that lasts to this day. Its time was one of unmatched technical change. In a few years we’d gone from naked, aircooled, twin-shock fours to this compact, fully-faired rocket with its monoshock and 16-inch front wheel.

We’d known the Kawasaki was good long before reaching the Island. Editor Dave Calderwood had clocked 160mph for the first time in a memorable test in the July issue, blown away by its handling as well as its performance. The red-and-black bike was the one we all wanted to be on when attacking the TT circuit, and it was even respectably practical for the motorway slog home. A mark of the Ninja’s impact is that the next time I tested one was seven years later, for Bike’s September 1991 issue. It had been renamed the GPZ900R and was still in production, chassis beefed-up but engine little changed, having sold in vast numbers and outlasted its supposed successors the GPZ1000RX and ZX-10. Reborn Triumph’s new multis were clearly inspired by it, too. Few bikes have been remotely as influential.

‘Triumph’s new multis were clearly inspired by it’