Kawasaki launches Kawasaki Z800 news to look more threatening, with the inflated engine and with the part cycles re-examined to succeed Kawasaki Z750 which is withdrawn at the end of the year, strong of an eighth title of better sale motor bike in France. Is the bet successful? First test!
The presentation of the news Kawasaki Z800 this autumn had been learnedly orchestrated: by mid-September, the manufacturer of Akashi put on line an official first teaser of Kawasaki Z800, then released two weeks later the first official information, and expected the Intermonth Living room of Cologne to discover completely replacing it of his Z750…
Only “false note” in the partition Coffee: an escape at the beginning of September somewhat had hustled its plans… and simultaneously created the “buzz” on the web: Kawasaki was thus not really a loser!
At the time of launching presses that European organized yesterday in Monaco, glass of the Greens was on the other hand much more than with empty half: it is unfortunately under cloudburst that the journalist’s motor bike Europeans discovered replacing it of Kawasaki Z750…
Fortunately, Kawasaki had envisaged one half-day of additional test during which the sky was shown more lenient. The sun even succeeded in drying some turns, making it possible. bikescatalog.Com to attack a little more with the handlebar of the news “Zed”. But let us begin again since the beginning…
Unloaded with the end of the year 2003, Z750 sowed the disorder on the segment of the roadsters of average rolled thanks to its “large” engine, its tariff placed well as compared to the 600 DC of competition, but also – and especially according to Kawasaki -, thanks to its innovative design.
After a first year of marketing placed with the suction of FZ6/Fazer, Z750 in 2005 became the best sale in France for the motor bicycles of “more than 125 DC” and its since then its success was never contradicted (for any knowledge on this, lira our Z750 Special folder: stroke of genius of Kawasaki) and our Assessment occasion Kawasaki Z750.
While cumulating the sales of first Kawasaki Z750 (2003-2006) and its versions S (2005-2006), then those of second Z750 (2007-2012) and its version R (2011-2012), Kawasaki arrives at a total of 158,674 run out specimens, of which a third on was our only territory!
Admittedly, readers of bikescatalog.Com – which as each one knows, are lucky a little more than the others –to know already than this year, it is Yamaha Tmax 530 which will become the n°1 of the sales of big-engine cars in France. But Z750 will preserve its crown in 2012 for being a motor bike category! It is to say if the pressure is important on the shoulders of Z800, the new roadster Coffee which is on the point of taking over 750 in the Kawasaki concessions (to read MNC of November 27th, 2012 starting from mid-December: the Kawasaki network celebrates the arrival of Kawasaki Z800 on December 14th).
Aesthetically the new Kawasaki roadster accentuates its image of brutish lout: “we concentrated the masses on the engine by shortening the back part and the pot on the one hand, and by lowering the light unit and meter of the other”, the spokesperson of Kawasaki Europe describes us.
Perfectly anchored in the line of Z (750 and 1000), the 800 was born under the sign of “Sugomi, a Japanese symbol which represents a person who has character and whose power can intimidate”, the Greens boast…
Exposed to the sides of Z750 in the conference room, it is necessary to acknowledge that the Kawasaki Z800 news gains in imposing presence and file a malicious blow of old man to the old model! Those who expected Z1000 minis will not be disappointed by the look of this innovation 2013, even if the plastic is omnipresent.
Beside this the men of Akashi made efforts in terms of completion: the screws of the scoops of radiators are not apparent any more, and the masks are next to the unpleasant injectors, the cables and sheaths are carefully laid out, the indicators are a little more elegant and the main braking cylinders (before and back) being more discrete…
“We realized that the motorcyclists carried a great attention at the back of their mounting”, Karim Mostafi notices: “and that is understood, it is the sight that the others have once they were doubled!”
All is not perfect nevertheless on the Kawasaki Z800 news. Side completion, the adjustment of the plastic wings on the tank is not irreproachable, but it is especially on the side of the equipment that disappointment watches for…
Indeed, rather than to inaugurate an aluminum framework as one finds some on the Z1000 big brother, the Japanese were satisfied to update the framework out of steel of the Z750R – itself bated at Z750. And if Z800 takes again the suspensions of this same version R, on the other hand it makes the dead end on its pretty oscillating aluminum arm and on its clamps with radial fixing.
“The two elements which you mention there relate to the concept “R”, but Z800 is inspired by Z750”, retorts Yamamoto San to us. “But our evolutions make it possible Z800 to be better than the Z750R from all points of view!” He ensured bikescatalog.Com.
If one can understand the decision of the Greens to preserve the steel framework – after all, the Yamaha FZ8 equipped with a framework aluminum goes less better commercially than Kawasaki Z750 -, one doubts that the future customers accept the fact quite easily that the tariff of Kawasaki Z800 exceeding 200 Euros with that of the Z750R (8899 € against 8699)! Especially that the innovation does not take again all the beautiful upper works of the “R”…
On the other hand in regard to the engine, the Kawasaki news should win unanimous support: strong from its 806 DC, the “Zed” again has the largest mill of the category! “It was the maximum cubic capacity which enabled us to preserve balance engine-frame”, still the person in charge of the project reveals us… and not to play in the court of the maximum-roadsters incidentally!
Whereas in 2007 the maximum power of Z750 passed from 110 to 106 horses – the couple gained a little, phew! -, that of Kawasaki Z800 climbs from now on with 113 horses for the free world (and 106 horses in France for three years still).
Naturally, the Japanese engineers also filled bottoms and semi modes of their roadster, so that the curves of couple and power of Kawasaki Z800 exceeds with those of Z750, whatever the driving mode.
