If you believe the motorcycle rumor mill, the now long-in-the-tooth Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R is set to get an update next model year. Now four years old, the ZX-6R has long shared a common thread with its 1,000cc brethren, the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R. With the ZX-10R now two-model-years-old though, the clock has been ticking as to when Kawasaki would give the ZX-6R a similar makeover. While still simply an internet rumor, there does seem to be some logic to the idea that we could see a new Kawasaki ZX-6R by the end of the year, though nothing can be for certain.
With the sport bike market in Europe almost completely falling out, and sales here in the United States just now starting to show some growth (though still way down from pre-recession figures), there is ample economic incentive for companies like Kawasaki to hold-off from updating their sport bike offerings, especially if break-even volumes haven’t yet been achieved in the current production runs.
A lesson could be learned from brands like BMW and Ducati though, both of whom continued to update their lines during the economic downturn, and were met with very favorable responses from sport bike buyers.
With the Japanese OEMs taking a conservative approach, and scaling back production, deliveries, and new model schedules for the recessionary times, we are now heading into a period where brands like Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha will begin announcing and releasing the bikes they have been brooding over for the past few years. Stay tuned sport bike fans.
Source: Moto Revue
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