Kawasaki Motorcycles

Kawasaki's motorcycle business traces back to Kawasaki Heavy Industries, founded in 1896 as a shipbuilder. The company didn't enter motorcycle production until the 1960s, after merging with Meguro Manufacturing and releasing its first model, the 125cc New Ace. It was the 1969 H1 Mach III - a 500cc two-stroke triple - that put Kawasaki on the map internationally, briefly holding the title of the most powerful production motorcycle in the world on the strength of its combination of raw power and affordability. Kawasaki introduced the Ninja name in 1984 with the Ninja 900 (GPZ900R), a bike praised at launch as the most technically sophisticated inline-four ever built, pairing the first production liquid-cooled 16-valve inline-four with an engine used as a stressed frame member. That performance-first identity, inherited from heavy-industrial engineering roots rather than a bicycle or instrument-making background like several of its Japanese rivals, still defines the brand today.