LAUNCH KAWASAKI ZX-6R
Here we have a bright green reminder that nothing stays the same forever, except the 2024 Kawasaki ZX-6R actually has stayed the same. But, of course, that's not really what I'm on about. I'm referring to the fact that back in 2021, Kawasaki announced the discontinuation of the evergreen – pardon the pun – ZX-6R, citing tighter emissions standards suffocating the little 636cc engine, which needed every drop of oxygen it could get, and a generational love affair with sportsbikes that have a million horsepower. Fast-forward just three years and here we are, the ZX-6R is back. So, what's changed since Kawasaki's supersport bike made its apparent final farewell?
It turns out that there is, in fact, an appetite for fun sportsbikes without intimidating spec sheets or price tags, backed up by the arrival of the Yamaha R7, Aprilia RS 660, Suzuki GSX-8R and, more recently, the Triumph Daytona 660. All of those are perfectly adequate sportsbikes that cash in at about £9000 and have arrived in the time since the ZX-6R was canned. They seem to be selling well enough for Kawasaki (and Honda) to say, ‘You know what? Without doing anything at all, we can start making the ZX-6R again, and because we've still got all the tooling, and all the development costs have been paid already, we can make ZX-6Rs for a few quid more than any of those new bikes’. And that's why the ZX-6R comes with a ticket price of just £10,500 – it's not a new bike. In fact, you can trace it back to the 2013 bike.
It's worth mentioning at this point that the bike on test is the Performance Edition, which gets you a snazzy carbon fibre Akrapovic end can, smoked screen, pillion seat cowl, tank pad and some handy knee grips on the side of
