Horror_Professional Posted April 1 Posted April 1 Kawasaki Motors, Ltd. (カワサキモータース株式会社, Kawasaki Mōtāsu Kabushikigaisha) is a Japanese mobility manufacturer that produces motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, utility vehicles, watercraft, outboard motors, and other electric products. It derives its origins from Kawasaki Aircraft Industries, a subsidiary of Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and is rooted in the motorcycle, boat, and engine businesses. In 1953, they began manufacturing engines for motorcycles and have since produced products such as the Mach and Ninja series in motorcycles and the Jet Ski, which has become a generic term for personal watercraft. Until 2021, it was a division of Kawasaki Heavy Industries, known as the Kawasaki Aerospace Company (川策重工業汎用機カンパニー) and later the Kawasaki 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). In 2021, it was separated as Kawasaki Motors, Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kawasaki Heavy Industries. Kawasaki Aircraft initially manufactured motorcycles under the Meguro name, having bought an ailing motorcycle manufacturer, Meguro Manufacturing with whom they had been in partnership. This eventually became Kawasaki Motor Sales.[3] Some early motorcycles display an emblem with "Kawasaki Aircraft" on the fuel tank. During 1962, Kawasaki engineers were developing a four-stroke engine for small cars. Then some of the engineers transferred to the Meguro factory to work on the Meg ro K1 and the SG, a single cylinder 250 cc OHV. In 1963, Kawasaki and Meguro merged to form Kawasaki Motorcycle Co., Ltd.[4][5] From 1962 through 1967, Kawasaki motorcycles used an emblem which can be described as a flag within a wing. Work continued on the Meguro K1, a copy of the BSA A7 500 cc vertical twin[6] and on the W1. The K2 was exported to the U.S. for a test in response to the expanding American market for four-stroke motorcycles. At first it was rejected for a lack of power. By the mid-1960s, Kawasaki was finally exporting a moderate number of motorcycles. The Kawasaki H1 Mach III in 1968, along with several enduro-styled motorcycles to compete with Yamaha, Suzuki and Honda, increased sales of Kawasaki units. 1974 saw the establishment of a Kawasaki assembly facility in Lincoln, Nebraska, US, named the American Kawasaki Motors Corporation (KMC), to complete Japan-produced components into finished motorcycles for the North American market.[7][8] Kawasaki's engines division, housed in a single office complex in Grand Rapids, Michigan, consolidates research and development projects . . Kawasaki's first title was with Dave Simmonds in 1969 when they won the 125 cc World Championship. Kawasaki dominated the 250 cc and 350 cc grand prix classes from 1978 to 1982 winning four titles in each category. With the introduction of the four-stroke engines into MotoGP in 2002, Kawasaki decided to take part in the new MotoGP World Championship. Kawasaki entered the championship in 2003 with 250 cc Grand Prix racer Harald Eckl's Team Eckl. In 2003, the Kawasaki Racing Team was formed after Kawasaki had developed their new 990cc ZX-RR bike throughout 2002 and raced it in the last three races of the 2002 MotoGP season. The racing activities were managed by Harald Eckl's team based in Germany. It was not until 2004 that Kawasaki had two riders - Alex Hofmann and Shinya Nakano, who raced for the entire season. Nakano placed 3rd in Japan that year achieving Kawasaki's first podium finish in MotoGP.[13] In 2007, Kawasaki split from Harald Eckl because of Eckl's involvement with a competitor's MotoGP activities, which forced Kawasaki to terminate the relationship immediately.[14] Kawasaki formed Kawasaki Motors Racing, a European subsidiary of Kawasaki Heavy Industries responsible for managing the racing activities of the MotoGP team and any other motorcycle racing activities Kawasaki may enter in the future. For the first time since Kawasaki returned to the premier class of motorcycle racing, the team became a complete 'in house' factory team. On January 9, 2009, Kawasaki announced it had decided to "... suspend its MotoGP racing activities from 2009 season onward and reallocate management resources more efficiently". The company stated that it will continue racing activities using mass-produced motorcycles as well as supporting general race oriented consumers. In 1973, Kawasaki introduced a limited production of stand-up models as designed by the recognized inventor of jet skis, Clayton Jacobson II.[11] 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawasaki_Motors
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