1986 Kawasaki GPZ900R – $19,500
1986 Kawasaki GPZ900R for sale
SELLER SAYS: This bike has been well looked after and is in excellent condition. 24,156km. Currently on Club plates which are NOT transferable. Bike is located in Alexandria 2015, NSW. $19,500. Contact Bruce at Zen Motorcycles on 02 72275101 (Alexandria, NSW).
EDITOR TERLICK SAYS: It wasn’t easy to build a stand-out big-bore motorcycle in the mid-1980s, especially if you were a Japanese manufacturer. Fact is, from about 1970 onwards the die had been cast in concrete – sporty riding position, seat and pegs for two, civilised street manners and, most importantly, an inline four-cylinder engine somewhere north of 750cc. Honda created the mould with the CB750 and Kawasaki confirmed it with the Z1. Everyone else just kinda joined the show. The GPZ900R did not break the mould but stretched and redirected it, taking the so-called Universal Japanese Motorcycle (UJM) down the path of sports bike, rather than tourer. You could even go so far as to say it gave birth to the modern sports-tourer genre. The GPZ’s marketing headline was a very simple one: 150mph. Yep, this was the first bike to crack a ton-and-a-half, thanks to 115 horses pushing about 230kg. And then, if that wasn’t enough to make buyers excited, along came Tom Cruise and Top Gun. Its performance stats earned the GPZ a “fastest bike in the world” tag, which in turn made it a no-brainer when the producers of Top Gun wanted a bike to have Tom Cruise race down a runway really, really fast. (And here’s a fun fact. If you watch the movie closely, you’ll notice there are no Kawasaki badges on the bike ridden by TC. Some folks will tell you the producers thought having the brand visible would detract from the plot, but my understanding is those same producers asked Kawasaki to provide a new GPZ for the movie, and Kawasaki said no. So the producers, in a little hissy-fit, removed the badges.) This bike looks like a very tidy example of one of history’s most memorable machines, and one that has the style, performance and comfort to be a useable classic. Nice one.
