The internet motosphere is buzzing right now with the idea that we will see some more supercharged models from Kawasaki for the 2016 model year.
The wave of news is really just the parroting of a report from Japanese publication Young Machine, which has a hit-or-miss record with predicting new models from the Japanese OEMs.
And as usual, some publications are mistakenly taking Young Machine’s photoshop renders as the genuine article, so we should dismiss this tom foolery out of hand, right? Not so fast.
While any story from Young Machine should get a doss of skepticism, we do know that Kawasaki is said to be working on a Ninja 250RR small-displacement machine, and that the company trademarked the “R2” name earlier this year.
We also know that the Japanese OEMs are heavily exploring forced induction machines, with the Kawasaki Ninja H2 being the first supercharged model, of several expected, to come from Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and maybe even Yamaha.
Is the below image from Young Machine a leaked photo of the new Kawasaki R2? Nope, it’s an H2 street bike with the colors shifted to red in Photoshop.
The other rumor is that Team Green will also debut the Kawasaki S2 (rendered at the top of the article), which said to be a middleweight ~650cc displacement machine, which with its supercharger, will make liter-bike horsepower figures.
The concept sounds exactly like the Suzuki Recursion, which we expect to see in production form while at the Tokyo Motor Show and EICMA show in Milan. The Recursion, for those who don’t remember, is a 588cc sport bike with a supercharger pushing power north of 100hp.
It will be interesting to see what truth comes about from this S2 rumor. One would think with the name scheme, we would see a bit of overlap between the R2 and S2, though the rumors and speculation don’t seem to suggest that.
If the pundits are correct then, we could see a new middleweight forced-induciton segment begin to form in the motorcycle industry. Lightweight / high-power motorcycles with Japanese reliability? Sign us up.
As always though, caveat emptor on the news you ingest. Fortunately, we won’t have long to wait, in order to see who is right and who needs pass the dutchie.
Source: Young Machine
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