COMPARISON
By Kit Palmer
Photos by Mark Hoyer and Palmer
hen Kawasaki introduced the Vulcan 800, the forerunner to the
mighty Vulcan 1500, a couple of
years ago, the company cornered a
niche in the cruiser market that was basicaIly untapped. While everyone was
introducing bIgger, badder and bolder
cruiser bikes, Kawasaki's Vulcan 800
gave the potential cruiser buyer a viable
option to these new, high-dollar behemoths that were emerging on the scene,
many of them carrying five-digit price
tags. Sure, monster cruisers are cool, but
they're expensive, too. So what if you
wanted to be cool and still have enough
money left over to keep the tank full of
gas? Your options were limited and that's
why Kawasaki came out with the Vulcan
BOO and Vulcan 800 Gassic.
Up until the Vulcan BOO, there were no
new, relatively inexpensive cruisers on
the market that could come close to
exhibiting that cool cruiser styling of the
big bikes or come even dose to matching
the power output and torque of their big
IJd
(Top) Both the Suzuki
Marauder and the
Kawasaki Vulcan
Classic make
excellent, affordable
alternatives to the
big-buck,
heavyweight retrostyle cruisers now on
the scene. Some of
the more significant
differences between
the two bikes are
wheels, suspension,
cylinder angles,
handlebars and price.
(Above) The Classic
maintains that
required cruiser look,
while the cross-under
exhaust system on
the Marauder (right)
give it a more dragbike appearance.
BOO Classic and Suzuki VZ800V Marauder
