trenace
Needs a job
Posts: 3056
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posted February 12, 2006 09:33 AM
 Edited By: trenace on 12 Feb 2006 09:36
Four years is a completely unreasonable assumption in my opinion.
The only thing stopping them from cranking out same-as-last-time (I believe there was a 2004 model in other markets) ZX-9R's is if any of the parts suppliers would need to resume production of their parts... which would hardly be a four year task for a Japanese firm... so far as how Kawasaki's assembly lines work they don't have to set up a new line.
Validating using ZX-10R wheels and brakes and figuing how to do the suspension is not the work of four years.
Almost undoubtedly Kawasaki is already doing the emissions work for the 2007 Z1000, in which case the emissions work for this ZZR-953 is also being done.
2007 would be easy.
  
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claude
Expert Class
Posts: 205
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posted February 12, 2006 10:50 AM
quote:
...it, it would take a good 4 years to bring to market...
are you going to bump this topic to the top for 4 years?
That gives us lots of time to find you and take your computer away from you!
Like Trenace wrote, it could be done for next year.
Popping out this topic for 4 years? If I knew it is the only way to have Kasasaki takin a move the right way, I would do it.
And I would make it from here which is so far away from any of you that you would never find me. Mouahahahahaha!!! 
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fish_antlers
Administrator
The Truth is Out There
Posts: 21894
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posted February 12, 2006 05:29 PM
Edited By: fish_antlers on 12 Feb 2006 17:29
understand what I said... why would they bother "pumping out" the same crap? The bike is done for.. toast.. used up.. old technology. They stopped making it for a reason. Cuz it's old.
If they make something to replace it, it would have to be new.
The thinking that both you (Trenace) and Claude are suggesting is exactly the sort of thinking that has consistently done Kawasaki "in" ... hanging on to the past is a waste of time. The 900 was okay.. not great.. just okay.. and old..
want a new 900? maybe one day they'll build one.. but if they ever want to move into a real part of the sportbike market share they need to keep on turning out NEW product like the ZX-14, ZX-10R and ZX-6R .,..
stop looking back. the bike;s a dead horse.
Hey Claude... if you love it so much I bet you can still buy a brand new ZX-9R ,... there've got to be thousands of them sitting in warehouses still unsold from years past.
tellin' it like it is.
Kawasaki... if you read this please disregard the crazy rantings of Claude...
Keep doing what you;re doing.. you;re on the right track!
____________
What business is it of yours where I'm from, Friendo?
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claude
Expert Class
Posts: 205
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posted February 12, 2006 05:42 PM
Well, thanks anyway for the support.
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trenace
Needs a job
Posts: 3056
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posted February 12, 2006 07:11 PM
Edited By: trenace on 12 Feb 2006 20:44
He can't buy it with 2007 wheels, brakes, suspension, and 953cc... which absolutely there is nothing else available like, only far less sport-competent bikes or far less practical-competent bikes.
Fish it's nice to say "Nothing but new" but no motorcycle company runs that way, not even Honda. A lot of times a platform remains excellent and only needs for those areas that advance with time, e.g. suspension and brakes, to meet the new standard, while there remains nothing wrong with the frame design, the ergos, etc.
However if you want to lobby Kawasaki to build an all-new bike (way more resource-intensive to do) for that segment of the market you go right ahead, for sure. That also would be good, but quite arguably less likely to happen, due to being unlikely to be much better (wouldn't be much lighter, no reason to prefer dimensional changes, and already asking the motor to be a hotter downdraft version of Kawasaki's 2007 Z1000 motor) but being far more costly to do -- plus by your own estimate, if you thought bringing the ZX-9R up to date would take four years to bring to market, how long would your imagination be for an all-new bike with design starting today? Logically, your estimate personally would need to be more than four years then. How 'bout the meantime.
Or, here's another way of thinking about it: Developmental resources are limited. What one area takes up, another area then cannot get. So is it best for the development effort for an all-new bike to go into a "standard" faired bike -- a sports tourer / daily rider with sporting capability that's remarkably good but a couple sec per lap slower than the all out sports bike -- so as to gain a second per lap on the track but no one care because it isn't a track bike, and to make a difference that won't be noticeable on the street? Or is it better to have something 99% as good using existing parts, including moving the topline up-to-the-minute ZX parts into that ZZR line, and put that amount of developmental effort into advancing the supersports: a difference that will make the difference between finishing comparos first or finishing them third? Which is the better business decision and which gives more benefit to the customers on the whole?
Resources aren't unlimited so the decision to go all-new for a 900 or 1000-class ZZR does mean taking the same work away from elsewhere.
It's easy to just say be all new all the time. But as above, not even Honda does that.
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