The moment I first laid eyes on this magnificent behemoth, I was dreadfully intimidated by it. I was looking for a new bike to buy and it blew my mind.
To my youthful eye it appeared to be half again as big as any other big bike around at the time. Its contemporary, the Yamaha XS1100, was dwarfed by Kawasaki’s flagship. And for a teenager just coming to terms with the might and power of his Suzuki four-pot GSX1100, the Kwaka’s monolithic six-cylinder engine said: “You and everything like you, is my bitch” and I believed it.
I wondered how anyone could ride one in anger.
Some years later, while I was stuck in a creek crossing on my way to the inaugural and legendary Rough Road Rally, and balanced precariously on a rock, a Z1300 (two-up and with a small blue Smurf glued to the front guard) came whooshing down the hill and splashed into the creek at full noise. Did the rider back off? Did he shit. He kept the throttle pinned and roared through the water, spreading a foot-high bow-wave that almost toppled me from my rock, and rocketed off up the hill on the other side. So they could indeed be ridden in anger provided you were angry enough.
The Z1300 first surfaced in 1979 and quite simply overwhelmed people with immensity and touring ability. It produced 72.3kW, weighed a zesty 322kg fully fuelled and oiled, and if you were a proper man, you could coax its torque-rich, silky smoothness to propel you to a top speed of about 230km/h. It even boasted a huge 27lt petrol tank, which was the biggest one available on any production bike at the time. It could carry immense loads at quite a fast clip, had a reasonable shaft-drive on it, and provided you didn’t expect too much from its handling (and what did we even know about proper handling those thin-framed days?), it was quite capable. Many of them were quickly turned into sidecar-toting hacks by sidecar lovers who instantly saw its potential in that area, but the rest developed a true cult following that persists to this day.
Words by Boris Mihailovic