Kawasaki police motorcycles

Kawasaki police motorcycles have been produced in four series:

All series have been equipped with windshields, saddleboxes, pursuit lights, and folding floorboards rather than footpegs. All are a single-rider version of the Universal Japanese Motorcycle design popular until the advent of specialized motorcycle designs divided the market into cruisers, sport bikes, touring bikes and other specialized applications. All series are also designed to carry radio communications equipment and are wired for electronic sirens.

All have inline, 4-cylinder, normally-aspirated four-stroke, double overhead-cam engines and chain drives, and larger generating systems than similar civilian models. C- and P-series Police Specials were also equipped with tires designed to stay on the rim in case of deflation. These run-flat tires, supplied by Dunlop, were able to increase safety significantly by enabling the rider to safely slow to a stop if the tires are damaged in a high-speed pursuit. However, the very thick sidewalls on run-flat tires transmit a much greater level of road shock to the handlebars, increasing rider fatigue; and also generated excess friction/heat which resulted in above average tire wear, prompting operating agencies to migrate to standard high-performance tires. As a result, Dunlop discontinued production of the run-flats. The most popular replacement tires are provided by Metzeler.

The most obvious difference between the KZP and the earlier series was the addition of a fiberglass fairing, to which the front pursuit lights and windshield were mounted. The fairing also has two covered pockets for storage of small items. Due to the unique shape of the fairing, this has become the most identifiable police-service motorcycle design in the world. Earlier Kawasaki police motorcycles had a windshield with a shape similar to that found on the older Harley-Davidson Electra Glide motorcycle, then popular with law enforcement.

The C-series borrowed features from the American police motorcycles with which it was designed to compete. These included a spring-cushioned saddle, and a speedometer equipped with a solenoid to trap the indicator needle against the glass when the pursuit lights were activated, to mark the speed at which a lawbreaker was traveling at the time. Both of these features were eliminated in the KZP, which was equipped with a standard speedometer and tachometer.

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Wikipedia