VOL. 52 ISSUE 47 NOVEMBER 24, 2015 P51
The Future's Bright…
After already showing the new
Ninja ZX-10R, Kawasaki had very
little at Milan aside from a few
paint job specials such as the
"winter test edition" Ninja or Su-
gomi Z1000 and Z800. But then
they dropped a bombshell…
Kawasaki's top brass announced
that there will be 12 new Kawa-
saki models over the next two
years. Cycle News went digging
and according to our sources
these won't be Euro 4 enforced
tweaks, but brand new ma-
chines. What can we expect?
At the Tokyo bike show Kawa-
saki unveiled the Spirit Charger
concept bike, which used the
H2's supercharged engine. At
Milan they unveiled a picture
of the Soul Charger, which is
designed to demonstrate that the
supercharged concept can be
scaled down and used on small-
er capacity engines. What
does this mean? Emission
laws are becoming very strict
in Europe and by supercharg-
ing a small capacity bike you
can make it pass regulations
instead of having to fit huge
catalytic converters such as
Ducati has done. Kawasaki's
Soul Charger is a hint that not
only can the supercharged
engine be scaled down, but
also Kawasaki is building
another triple!
If you look at the image of the
Soul Charger, not only are
there three exhaust pipes,
the supercharger feeds into
a plenum chamber that sits at
the back of the fuel tank area.
This hints that Kawasaki is look-
ing at "reversing" the current
non-supercharged design of a
huge airbox at the front and fuel
storage located behind it. What
Less Brutal
At an Italian show we expected
a bit more from MV, but the
company only delivered an
updated Brutale 800 with
25 percent more torque, a
new look, bigger exhaust and
shaper styling. Alongside the
Brutale, MV released a Drag-
ster RR LH44, which is a Lewis
Hamilton special edition and
limited to just 244 bikes.
A three-cylinder supercharged
engine? Yes please!
KAWASAKI
of the Spirit Charger? The larger
capacity supercharged engine will
almost certainly be fitted with the
variable vane technology that was
also shown at Tokyo and used in
a variety of bigger bikes such as
the ZZR1400 and 1400GTR.
MV AGUSTA
Lewis Hamilton gets his own bike.
