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Our First Glimpse of the Supercharged Kawasaki H2

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At the end of this month, Kawasaki is set to debut a supercharged sport bike, which the Japanese company says will be a game-changing event.

We’ve already seen the Kawasaki H2’s supercharged inline-four engine, as well as the supercharger’s patent, and Team Green has even been kind enough to send us the H2’s exhaust note as well.

Continuing to tease the new Ninja’s debut video short web videos, Kawasaki is finally giving us an idea of what to expect visually from the new H2.

Making an homage to the big-displacement motorcycle of Kawasaki’s past, you’ll want to watch the video after the jump. We’ve enhanced a screen grab for you as well.

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Bikes

Listen to the Sound of the New Supercharged Kawasaki H2

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Continuing to build the buzz around its newest sport bike, Kawasaki has sent us a sound clip of the new H2 motorcycle, which the company will debut at the upcoming INTERMOT show.

Team Green has been pretty tight-lipped about the Kawasaki H2, though there have been plenty of clues sprinkled around for us to suss out that it will be a sport bike with a supercharged inline-four engine.

Listening to the provided sound clip seems to confirm our notion that Kawasaki’s new supercharger system is at work.

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Bikes

The New Supercharged Kawasaki Ninja H2 is Coming Soon

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Kawasaki is teasing a new model today, which it will unveil at the upcoming INTERMOT show in October. Called the Kawasaki H2, the name harkens back to a pivotal time in Kawasaki’s motorcycle history, where the Japanese company made one of the most highly regarded line of sport bikes of its time.

While the video itself reveals very little in information, and only a couple looks at the machine, the teaser website provides us with a little more information.

Hidden in the website is the following phrase: “The Ninja H2 was not designed with meeting regulations a primary concern. Kawasaki’s latest flagship is the result of a pure exercise in pushing the limits of motorcycle technology with the goal of creating the ideal road sports bike.”

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News

More on Kawasaki’s Supercharged Motorcycle Engine

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The tease of 2013 has to be Kawasaki and its supercharged four-cylinder engine, which the Japanese OEM debuted at this year’s Tokyo Motor Show. Showing the engine, and giving virtually no information about the intended uses of the supercharged power plant, we have been left to speculate over what Kawasaki’s intentions are in the two-wheeled forced-induction realm.

Diving through the Google’s database of patent applications though,  we see that over the years Kawasaki has published a number of patents that relate to adding a supercharger to a motorcycle. Not only has Kawasaki been thinking about how to fit a supercharger into a motorcycle for some time now, but the OEM has some clever tricks up its sleeve in order to optimize its designs.

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Bikes

Kawasaki Debuts Supercharged Four-Cylinder Engine

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The start of the Tokyo Motor Show is today, if you haven’t already noticed, and it looks like the Japanese OEMs have saved their best models for the home court advantage this year, with all four of the Big Four having something special for Tokyo.

Yamaha’s big announcement of course is the nearly-ready-for-production Yamaha R25 concept, a 250cc two-cylinder sport bike that Valentino Rossi says “packs quite a punch.” The tuning fork brand also has its more fanciful concepts to show-off, chiefly the Yamaha PES1 electric street bike and the Yamaha PED1 electric dirt bike.

Suzuki is in the mix as well, with its turbocharged Recursion concept, as well as its electric monkey bike, the Extrigger concept. Both of these motorcycles look like a hoot to ride, for very different reasons of course.

Not wanting to be left out on the forced-induction warpath, Kawasaki has its own blower for the two-wheeled world. Showcasing a supercharged four-cylinder engine at its booth, Kawasaki says it developed the turbine and motor in-house, and hints that we will see this in a motorcycle model in the near future.

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Bikes

2013 Bimota DB11 VLX – Supercharged Italian Hotness

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Bimota is known for making some exquisite machines by taking production motors from other OEMs, and wrapping those engines in frames of Italian company’s own design. Art on two wheels, Bimota rarely strays from this formula, though when it does, something interesting usually happens. One such example is the 2013 Bimota DB11 VLX , which looks strikingly similar to the Bimota DB9 Brivido we saw at EICMA last year.

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News

Horex VR6 Delayed Until Spring 2012 – Supercharged Version Later

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German upstart Horex has announced that production of the Horex VR6 will be delayed from its planned start later this year, and instead will start production in Spring 2012. Citing part supply issues, particularly with the bike’s supercharger unit, Horex will first make available its 160hp normally-aspirated version, while the 197hp supercharged version will start production in late 2012.

The supply chain issue stems from the rebounding of the European OEM parts suppliers industry, who have lately been inundated with parts requests. Getting reportedly shuffled to the back of the queue, Horex does not have parts in the quantities it needs to make a proper production run, and thus has pushed production back further.

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Rumors

Rumor: New Kawasaki ZX-14 Facelift Coming This Month? Supercharged Hypersport Later?

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Rumors are swelling around the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14 (the Kawasaki ZZR1400 for friends on the other side of the pond). First up is that a new updated Kawasaki ZX-14 is set to debut by the end of the month. Expected to be only a cosmetic makeover, the 2012 Kawasaki ZX-14 will mechanically be the same as the current model.

Looking farther down the pipe though, it would seem from reports and patents that Kawasaki has been eyeing putting a supercharger on the hypersport machine, presumably to better position the ZX-14 against the increasingly more powerful 1,000 superbikes, like the company’s on 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R.

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Bikes

Best in Show at Verona: Stargate by Garage 65

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The Verona Motor Bike Expo may not be the largest motorcycle show in Italy, but it certainly attracts some of the most beautiful bikes to be found in the country shaped like a boot. Of course only one bike can be crowned as the very best on display, and with some help from our friends at OmniMoto.it, we can share with you that this year’s honor goes to the spare-no-expense-on-the-chrome-budget build of Viareggio-based Garage 65 and its Stargate custom.

The Tuscan tinkers are no strangers to winning bike build-offs, having won last year the Italian section of the World Constructors Championship with their Kosmodrive motorcycle (we’re sensing a theme here), and have again collaborated with Domenico Moretti to build the Stargate’s unique steel/aluminum frame.

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Bikes

Horex VR6 1200cc Supercharged Concept

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Out of stealth mode today in Munich, Horex Motorcycles is back after getting the axe from Daimler-Benz back in 1960. To help usher the company back into the motorcycle industry, Horex has developed a V6 1200cc supercharged concept bike that uses a VR6 cylinder configuration. A solid looking street-standard, the Horex VR6 concept is expected to begin production late in 2011, and make somewhere between 175hp-200hp, and over 110lbs•ft of torque.

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