Kawasaki Heavy Industries Motorcycle & Engine
Let the good times roll
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| Division of Kawasaki Heavy Industries | |
| Headquarters |
Minato, Tokyo Japan Chūō-ku, Kobe, Japan |
| Products | Motorcycles, ATVs, utility vehicles, personal watercraft, general-purpose gasoline engines |
| Website | www |
Kawasaki Heavy Industries Motorcycle & Engine Company (川崎重工業モーターサイクル&エンジンカンパニー)
is a division of Kawasaki Heavy Industries that produces motorcycles, ATVs, utility vehicles, jet ski personal watercraft, and general-purpose gasoline engines. Before the 2011 fiscal year it was called Consumer Products & Machinery. Its slogan is "Let the good times roll!".
Kawasaki's Aircraft Company began the development of a motorcycle engine in 1949. The development was completed in 1952 and mass production started in 1953. The engine was an air-cooled, 148 cc, OHV, four-stroke single cylinder with a maximum power of 4 PS (2.9 kW; 3.9 hp) at 4,000 rpm. In 1954, the first complete Kawasaki Motorcycle was produced under the name of Meihatsu, a subsidiary of Kawasaki Aircraft. In 1960, Kawasaki completed construction of a factory dedicated exclusively to motorcycle production and bought Meguro Motorcycles.
Kawasaki's first ATV was the three-wheeled KLT200, which debuted in 1981. Its first four-wheel ATV, the Bayou 185, was introduced in 1985 and in 1989, its first model with four-wheel-drive, the Bayou 300 4x4. Today, Kawasaki’s ATV line-up includes a wide range of recreational and utility ATVs.
Kawasaki's MULE (Multi-Use Light Equipment) utility vehicle combines an ATV with a pick-up truck. The first MULE was produced in 1988. Kawasaki now calls their utility vehicles "side-by-side" vehicles.
In 1973, Kawasaki introduced a limited production of stand-up models as designed by the recognized inventor of jet skis, Clayton Jacobsen II. In 1976, Kawasaki then began mass production of the JS400-A. JS400s came with 400 cc two-stroke engines and hulls based upon the previous limited release models. It became the harbinger of the success Jet-Skis would see in the market up through the 1990s. In 1986 Kawasaki broadened the world of Jet Skis by introducing a two-person model with lean-in "sport" style handling and a 650 cc engine, dubbed the Kawasaki X2. Then in 1989, they introduced their first two passenger "sit-down" model, the Tandem Sport (TS) with a step-through seating area. In 2003, Kawasaki celebrated the Jet Ski brand by releasing a special 30th anniversary edition of its current stand-up model, the SX-R, which has seen a revival of interest in stand-up jetskiing. The X-2 has also been updated, based on the SX-R platform and re-released in Japan. Kawasaki continues to produce three models of sit-downs, including many four-stroke models. The four stroke engines have come on since the late 1990s; with the help of superchargers and the like the engines can output up to 300 horsepower (220 kW) as seen in the Kawasaki Ultra 300x.
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Wikipedia