This one had been leaning up behind the fence in some guy’s back yard for a while…

the droopy turnsignals are kind of sad looking

Back in 1985 Cycle Guide raced on of these against a 454 Corvette and spanked it good. But time has not treated this little Kawasaki well.

Somebodies kids tried to fill the tank up with dirt.

Notice the relatively low miles on the odometer, like so many motorcycles this was ridden for a while until the owner got bored with it or scared of it and it was left to rot. It no doubt switched hands a few times and had the same sequence of events happen over and over until finally something broke or the carbs finally gummed up and no one cared to fix it.

This side view below shows that these bikes had a fairly good looking profile but even then the writing was on the wall for the fast, good handling, and comfortable 2 and 4 cylinder Japanese cruisers. Lighter & faster was no longer fashionable, so the big four answered the demands of their American customers, who really wanted a 1960s-70s Harley but with Japanese reliability & no oil leaks. It’s a pity because I think it would’ve been interesting to see where these designs went if they had continued to combine cruiser styling with super bike technology.

Here’s a little bonus picture, not really big enough be a dog, we’ll call this one a junkyard puppy. It got thrown in on the deal with the Kawasaki 454 LTD above. It’s a little Baja MB165 mini-bike. A friend of mine has one & I really enjoyed riding it, and wanted one of my own, but never could quite convince my self to buy one. This one was left to rot after mommy & daddy got tired of replacing clutches on it. Most people don’t realize when they buy these mini-bikes (or go-karts either) that the clutches are expensive consumables that have to be replaced on a regular basis. I going to put a torque converter on it, a bigger rear sprocket & some ATV luggage racks to make it into a modern version of the old Tote Gote.