Kawasaki’s 1960s foray into four-stroke street scramblers produced just one model, but, as Steve Cooper explains, it was definitely a machine with merits.
Kawasaki’s W series parallel twins stem from the Meguro Company that had produced similar 500s from the early 1950s. Towards the end of the decade a power unit very reminiscent of that of a BSA A7 appeared in Meguro’s motorcycles, but unfortunately the firm went bankrupt a few years later, leaving it ripe for Kawasaki Heavy Industries to take everything over.
The old design latterly received updates and revisions before being released as a new model and named as the W1. Supposedly the ‘eyes on the prize’ was the USA export market where Kawasaki hoped to take on the Big Brit Twins. However, the bike never quite made it there, despite the motor being both more robust and carrying substantial internal revisions. Kawasaki’s take on the oil feed to the crankshaft – the Achilles heel of BSA’s twins – was an elegantly simple solution to an acknowledged issue. Power delivery was very much in the same vein as UK bikes with handling just a bit ‘over sprung and under damped’, typical of many Japanese machines of the period.
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Initially sold with a single Mikuni carburettor, the W1 was said to be capable of some 110mph, but with a twin carb head and larger valves the W2SS was quoted as having six more Japanese horses available. All of these W series twins were handsome looking machines with candy red paintwork and chrome panels on their petrol tanks. Latterly, the side panels would morph into a silver finish and the previously chromed tank panels would turn white.
Circa 1968/69 the various W series twins received a second name – Commander – which was probably at the behest of the American importer. In the USA, many if not all Japanese motorcycles tended to get names as well as a model designation. This led to the W2SS Commander and the W2TT Commander which appears to have been a USA only model. Why TT? Because of the American interpretation of the early Isle of Man TT circuit, apparently – t there had been a 1920s perception that the IOM track contained jumps. However, in reality, the period Manx roads were just so bad that it sometimes appeared to the casual observer that these humps and bumps were intended obstacles on the course. This ultimately led to America developing its own TT racing where the circuits are purpose-built around non-oval racecourses with a dirt surface, with both right and left-hand turns and a jump once per lap.
The W2TT was, arguably, little more than a cynical marketing ploy aimed at maximising sales of the big twin. The street scrambler sported twin gauges and a large upswept pair of exhaust pipes that merged into a large collector and exited in two outlets. Other than that, Kawasaki had done precious little – no braced bars, special mudguards or any of the normal paraphernalia associated with the street scrambler genre. And yet the sales brochure certainly alluded to the bike’s potential competition readiness. The collector box could be taken off to give straight through pipes that would deliver ‘full racing power’ and the headlight could be quickly removed via an easily accessible plug. There’s little evidence of anyone actively competing at an American TT circuit on a W2TT and sales of the model appear to have been moderate at best.
And that was pretty much the end of Kawasaki’s foray into four-stroke street scramblers – just a one-off model. The W series carried on until for a few years with the W1SA adopting a left foot gear change before the W3 (aka 650 RS) was rolled out as a Final Edition model in 1973, equipped with twin disc brakes and Z1/Z2 style gauges. This was the end of the line for a design that had its origins in the 1950s.
When Kawasaki launched the OHC W650 range in 1999 some specials builders seized the initiative to make their own street scramblers. Looking online and seeing what people have done with the second series Kawasaki 650 twins you realise there’s still a lot of passion for a tidy street scrambler.
