Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128176
Intermat 2002, Part I EVEN I THE FACE OF SJ.UM~ING ECO OMICS. MOTORCYCLING PUTS A FRESH FOOT FORWARD By ALAN CATHCART PHOTOS I3Y KYOICHI NAKAMURA J gainst t)'le background of a .rt declining home market, which caused even BMW a fright earlier this year with a sudden drop in springtime sales, plus the ongoing steep 25-percent slump in the worldwide scooter sales which underwrite motorcycle production for several manufacturers, the Intermot 2002 show, which opened on September 18 in Munich, Germany, had all the makings of a wake - but instead turned into a great party, celebrating the more than 100 new models from manufacturers all over the world on display. Here are some of the key players that made their debut as the Class of 2003. Intermot '02 was most notable for the refreshening of two major product lines - one each in Europe and Japan - which have attracted ongoing criticism in recent years for their stagnation: Ducati and Kawasaki. In the case of the Japanese manufacturer, this process was primarily kickstarted by one man, the company's new senior manager, Shunji Tanaka, who moved to Kawasaki from car manufacturer Mazda little more than a year ago, where in his role as a designer 28 OCTOBER 16. 2002' cue I e n e _ so he'd been responsible for the world's best-selling sports car, the Mazda MX-5. Working with Kawasaki's inhouse K-Tec design studio, Tal)aka has delivered the attention-grabbing start of what promises to be an extensive overhaul of Big K's rather staid product line, starting with the ZX-6R that spearheads the company's attack on the 600cc Supersport class which, as a major market segment with increasing focus on race-oriented models, is the Japanese manufacturers' chosen battleground for showroom supremacy in 2003, with three out of the four companies producing extensively re-engineered and restyled new Supersport products. Of these, it was the Kawas'akis which stood out most - plural, because the company has continued its policy of offering a 636cc more street-focused version of the new ZX6R, alongside a cutting-edge ZX-6RR Supersport racer-with-Iights version. These are now fuel-injected for the first time - Kawasaki's first adoption of EFI on any of its sports models, evidently a spinoff from its links with Suzuki, though of course the company was the first to fit mechanical fuel injection on a customer model, two decades ago. The 67 x 42.5mm fourcylinder engine - now redlined at 16,000 rpm in RR guise - still equals the Honda as being the shorteststroke 600 in the Supersport class, but has been extensively revamped in both its formats, so much so that Kawasaki's outgoing World Supersport Champion Andrew Pitt says the RR version is so good straight out of the box, he was able to lap the Osch-