Kawasaki is a company based in Japan; founded by Kawasaki Shozo. It all started in 1924 when Kawasaki was involved in aircraft and metallurgy industry. In 1949, they decided to penetrate the rising motorcycle industry by designing engines for motorcycles.
First Range of Products from Kawasaki Motorcycles - Motorcycle Engines
Here comes the role of another famous company in the making of Kawasaki Motorcycles, i.e. - BMW. They designed 60cc two-stroke and many 150cc as well as 250cc four-stroke engines by using the technology from BMW; the company with whom, they had relationship since the early stages of their business in aeronautical industry.
They made and supplied motorcycle engines till 1954, when they finally decided to produce their first motorcycle. It was marketed under the name of Meihatsu, which was a subsidiary of Kawasaki Aircraft Co.
It was the same time when they also tried their hands on scooter industry by introducing their own range of scooters in the market but soon stepped back when they recognized that it is not possible for them to compete against market giants of that time, i.e. - Mitsubishi Silver Pigeon and the Fuji Rabbit.
Buying of Meguro Motorcycles
The story of Kawasaki Motorcycles is incomplete without the Meguro Motorcycles segment. At that time, Meguro Motorcycles was known as the "King of four strokes" and "senior make". Meguro came into the market during 1930's. Due to their good association with the government, they got a lot of benefit from the army orders.
The first motorcycle made by them was Z97. It was a rocker-valve motorcycle of 500cc and largely influenced by Swiss Motosacoche. This model turned out to be a great success and was manufactured till 1950's. After unbeatable success of Z97, the company launched some decent rocker-valve, single-cylinder as well as high performance twins. All of them were influenced by British motorcycles. The great success of all of their models motivated them to launch their low end rocker-valve 125cc and a twin cylinder 650cc escort their existing 500cc.
But their endless success provoked them to take some big decisions which ended up in ruining the company.
One of those decisions was taken in 1958, when they tried to get rid of their British influence and everything started to go wrong. Examples - 250cc F, 125cc E3 and the infamous 350cc Y A. It was very unfortunate that these bikes ended up to be too heavy to handle and were not able to get enough attention from buyers. Meguro Motorcycles again started to make rocker-valve models and remained as in top 10 manufacturers till 1960. Unfortunately, due to certain decisions like the one mentioned above, the company kept on declining and was bought by Kawasaki Motorcycles.
In 1960, they signed their first agreement with Kawasaki Motorcycles and before 1963, they vanished from the market.
And that was 1960 only when Kawasaki Aircrafts decided to give a serious up thrust to its Motorcycle division -
They took Meihatsu brand out of the market and also decided to build their own plant of low end and low powered machines after buying Meguro.
And they brilliantly executed many other decisions which have brought Kawasaki Motorcycles to one of the best Motorcycle Manufacturers.
Many fine pieces of art have been manufactured, many milestones have been crossed but one name was always there is every heart Kawasaki motorcycles.
