THE BIG TWIN YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF

The question was especially poignant with the recent demise of the troubled TX750 Yamaha twin, although Yamaha did soldier on with its now-venerable XS650 twin. The British parallel twin pretenders had largely vanished; the Enfield Interceptor, BSA’s A65, both gone, and the Norton Commando about to do the same, leaving only the 750cc Triumph Bonneville, of which the less said, the better. Perhaps Kawasaki felt that the once-proud class was ripe for picking, and that big-twin fans needed looking after. It’s true that the new breed of four-cylinder bikes – soon referred to as UJM (Universal Japanese Motorcycles) – did not have across-the-board appeal; many felt that the complexity and theOf course, Kawasaki had built a big twin before, or rather, they had inherited the BSA-like W1 650 as a result of their takeover of Meguro in 1964. Very British in concept and styling, the 650, through subsequent W2 and W3 versions, remained in production until 1975, by which time 26,289 had been built.