One of the most overlooked SuperBikes from the early ’90’s is the Kawasaki ZXR 750 / Ninja ZX-7 model J.

With it’s rounded, voluptuous curves it’s one of the most beautiful mechanical creations of the period. Yet, with the air intakes, “hoover” tubes, low swung fairing and “tail spoiler” it still looks pretty cool by today’s standards. At the time of production, it was one of the classiest rides in the field. Among the first road bikes to feature USD forks and a rigid aluminum perimeter-frame.

By the turn of the decade the EU-commission, worried about the rapid increase in bhp on road bikes, threatened to impose an import ban on motorcycles with more than 100bhp on the crank by the year 1992.

Instead of waiting for what seemed inevitable, two companies decided on self regulation with a max of 100bhp - BMW and Kawasaki, expecting other manufacturers to follow the initiative, but the bill was never passed and none of the other manufacturers felt the need to restrict their models. The result was, that the J is a pure street machine, factory designed to max out at 100bhp, and a tuned racing-version (K model) was introduced for the track. This is both fortunate and unfortunate at the same time - fortunate because the J has a great bottom and midrange torque due to the max 100bhp design, but unfortunate because the J model was left in oblivion due to the (slightly) faster competition in a bike segment where specs mean everything and ride-ability means nothing.