You won’t be buying this bike. Which is just fine with the seller. He’s priced his acceptable-but-definitely-not-showroom-condition Z1 at $79,000 precisely because he doesn’t want to sell it.
“I am only listing it at my wife’s insistence,” the seller explains. “I promised her I would list it, but would only sell it for the price listed.”
I have long joked that this is exactly what I would do if my wife insisted I sell one of my trombones. I have five of them sitting in my office. My wife sometimes points out that they take up a lot of space and suggests that since I can only ever play one horn at a time, perhaps I should sell a few.
“They’re all of different bore size,” I always explain. But she doesn’t seem convinced. So, if you would like to purchase a 1953 Cleveland Superior trombone for the low, low price of £50,000, please get in touch.
Meanwhile, this bike that you won’t buy and that the seller doesn’t want to sell was Kawasaki’s answer to the CB750. Produced from 1972 to 1975, the bike’s 903cc air-cooled inline four-cylinder engine claimed peak power outputs of 81 horsepower at 8500 rpm, and 54.2 lb-ft of torque – also at 8500 rpm.
In its relatively short production run, the bike earned all sorts of praise from riders and industry types.
“The Kawasaki effortlessly outmuscled the 15bhp less powerful Honda and, frankly, anything else on the road,” wrote UK journalist Roland Brown in a retrospective review a few years ago. “the Z1 storms forward with an arm-wrenching surge of acceleration that is thrilling now and must have been mind-blowing back in the day. There’s a raw urgency to the power delivery that still sends a tingle down the inside of your leather jacket.”
A 1973 Cycle World review of the bike was equally complimentary, observing: “spirited riding is just what the Z-1 thrives on. Even though cornering power is somewhat limited by the center stand on the left hand, the large machine can be swooped through a series of S-bends with complete confidence.”
The styling is just as iconic as the handling, and was the inspiration for the modern Z900RS. Though, this particular example is a little bit of a mutt. The tank is not the one that came with the bike; it comes instead from a slightly later-year Z1 – either 1974 or 1975. That’s a feature, not a bug, for the seller.
“If it doesn’t sell at the price listed, it doesn’t sell, and I am happy with that,” he says.
It seems the seller’s a winner regardless of the outcome of this sale, and I admire his spirit.
With unknown mileage (the ad says 99,999 miles but that may be the seller trying to further put you off), this Z1 is for sale for $79,000 in Salt Lake City, Utah, here on eBay.