In the movie "Top Gun," Tom Cruise's choice of earthbound transport was a Kawasaki GPZ900R. And it wasn't because he couldn't afford a car. It was because the GPZ900R was the fastest production sportsbike on the planet. F-14 pilots who rode the GPZ900R reckoned that it was faster off the line and to 100mph than a Tomcat on afterburner...
If like me, you remember the mighty GPZ900R, you'll know that Kawasaki has a long and proud history of building many of the worlds most iconic and cutting-edge sportsbikes. The Z1 in the 70's, ZXR750 in the 80's and the ZZR1100 in the early 90's - models that re-wrote the sports bike rule book.
Kawasaki's focus on building world-beating sportsbikes does however mean that they don't have as much of a history of producing sports-tourers. Kawasaki did produce a couple of shaft-driven touring bikes in the 80's, [the GT range] but the manufacturer is undoubtedly best known for building out & out sports motorbikes.
So the 1400 GTR is an important bike. It marks Kawasaki's re-entry into the increasingly popular sports-touring category after an absence of almost 20 years.
The touring category is fiercely competitive. The Honda ST1300 ABS, the Yamaha FJR1300 and BMW's R1200RT are all evolutions of models that have been in production for at least 15 years. Kawasaki has got some serious catching up to do. To give a 'real world' review, I rode the 1400GTR as potential buyers will - covering big miles over a variety of different roads in a short space of time...
A 600-mile round trip from Colchester to Liverpool via the world-famous Cat & Fiddle pass.
Here's how I got on...
