An iconic masterpiece that I'll always remember. The incredible Z1R ! Wow even today I just love the look of this beautiful Kawasaki machine. These are quite hard to find especially in mint condition. Well..how may of you guys remember or have ridden one of these? Go ahead and feast on the photos !

No but you just had me wtching about 45 minutes of mad max clips.

hahah.. yeah these machines for the majority of riders who were fortunate enough to even own one had Kerker exhaust systems attached to them which sounded completely insane in all the good ways. I was fortunate to ride one and it was total ecstasy..lol

Great looking machine.....

Don't specifically remember the Z1R ... but around 1982 when I was 14 a military dude in our neighborhood, 18 or 19 y.o., had a metallic dark blue KZ1000, a 79 or 80. He loved that thing like a friggin mother loves a baby. Came stock with no fairing but he added a 1/4 fairing painted and pin striped to match perfectly so it ended up looking about like the 82 GPz750. He'd always stop and talk to us kids who were riding skateboards and bikes (bicycles that is) around the neighborhood and generally wasting time and doing stupid kid stuff, chatting us up and telling us the latest this and that about his bike, his upcoming plans for it, the gas mileage, all kinds of stuff some of which we didn't even understand. Did I mention, HE LOVED THAT THING. Well, one day he comes riding up, stops to talk as usual, about 4 of us kids standing around talking with him, we'd always stop and hinge on his every word, again whether we understood or not ... and all of the sudden he asks me if I want to ride it!!!!!! WHAT???!!! HELL TO THE YEAH I wanna ride it!!!! But, I played cool. I've always been kind of a cool customer on the outside, so I've been told (no matter how excited and flippin out I may be on the inside!) which is probably why I got the nod. Turns out he wanted to see what his beloved bike looks like from everybody else's point of view ... and the only way to do that is ... well duh ... of course ... have somebody else ride it by. Even if it is a little kid who'd only ever ridden a Honda XR70!!! AT YOUR SERVICE SIR! YES SIR! I only got to ride it exactly 1 mile ... 1/2 mi to the end of the road and back, in our 30 mph neighborhood ... but damn it was FANTASTIC! Baddest experience of my life! ... to that point, anyway ... hell, maybe ever! Still! HAHA! I never did know why he picked me, but he did alright, and all the other kids were jealous ... hell I didn't care! I didn't rub it in their faces or anything, but I was damn sure not gonna let them ruin my moment!! I got to ride a friggin KZ1000!!!! Thank you Carl Patterson. I hope I did you proud! Hell, I didn't crash it! And I didn't even have a helmet on (which was illegal then), and at 14 no license of any kind, and it was a cool day so with no helmet I had water pouring from my eyes, and did I mention my parents woulda killed me had they found out?? Nevertheless ... Fantastic moment on a fantastic day.

* Last updated by: extrapolator on 11/11/2016 @ 10:26 PM *

I sat on my brother's Suzuki 750 in the garage and tipped it over. That's as close I came at 14.

Es...great story from a great point in life ...I bet you still grin telling it.. :)

Remember them? How could I ever forget them? I owned one of these things first time around and it was a POS. One of the worst bikes I have ever rode in my life.

* Last updated by: redboot on 12/5/2016 @ 10:32 PM *

extrapolator - thanks for sharing that experience, like me it had a huge impact on me. Wow the KZ1000 was another epic machine during those years. Of course the electronic, mechanics, suspension etc are much more advanced but during those years they were the bikes of the time.

I wasn't particularly shopping for a Z1R. In 1980 I had a car for sale or swap for bike. Somebody came by with a mint 1979 Z1R barely a year old and the deal was done. So I guess you could say I came by this bike by default.

The Z1R that I owned was identical to the one in the second picture in this thread and presented it self very well. The Ice Blue colour along with the Bikini Fairing and stock 4 into 1 made for a very attractive package of which I personally think is one of the nicest looking bikes that Kawasaki has ever produced. Prior to me owning this bike I had, had a succession of SOHC 754/4's and a few other smaller Honda's. The quality of finish on the Z1R was far superior to the Honda's of the same vintage. The tool kit was very good quality with chrome wrench's and I also recall the kick starter lever being stashed under the seat. ( correct me if I'm wrong on this next bit) The motor in this bike was one of the last 1015cc engines that Kawasaki produced and after the 1015 engine they went to the 999 engine. I seem to recall the Z1R having 90 BHP and to what I recall from riding it, it seemed like a lot more but then again compared to a 65 BHP SOHC 750/4! It would pull hard from 120 MPH to it's top speed of 135 MPH ( the numbers I saw on my speedo ) At 135 MPH it was squirly to say the least and not some thing I did a lot of times on this bike.

The reasons I call this bike a POS are as follows.
The brakes were very poor.
The suspension was very poor
The front forks would flex
The general over all handling was not good, the whole bike squirmed under hard braking.
Any thing less than smooth road surface in a bend upset the bike.
Ground clearance was not brilliant on the left and was compromised on the right by the 4 into 1 exhaust.

The above things to me is what makes a bike great (as in good suspension and brakes etc ) and Kawasaki missed every one of them with this bike. It looked good but it ended there. I recall coming home from the YD ( Yorkshire Dragoon Pub ) one night on the Z!R. left the pub on to what was then a quiet country road. We would blast through a couple of easy bends, down under the railway bridge, then through a few tight twisties before the road opened up to a straight stretch before the roundabout. It was easy to hit 100MPH before the roundabout. This particular night when I started to brake for the roundabout the back of the bike started to squirm, you could feel that squirm flex right through the bike from back to front. When the front end started to weave I would just let the brakes go then the bike would roll straight and then start braking again. There was more than one occasion when this happened, trust me, not fun.
This bike was the 4 Stroke equivalent of the earlier H1 and H2.
A memorable bike but none the less, a dangerous bike.

* Last updated by: redboot on 12/7/2016 @ 9:09 PM *

Agreed. It wasn't the most superior mechanically but it did have superior looks which for some wasn't enough. I personally never owned one but rode my friends bike for a short distance.

I didn't even have a bike then but was looking to buy a Z1R but couldn't afford one.