KZ700

This middleweight Kawasaki nameplate appeared for the 1984 model year and had a very short production life. It was developed for markets affected by the U.S. import tariff on motorcycles above 700cc, so the bike was sized to fit just under that threshold while still giving riders a larger-displacement standard. In Kawasaki’s lineup it sat as a practical roadster rather than a full-on sport machine, using the familiar air-cooled inline-four formula and the squared-off early-1980s styling associated with the company’s KZ family. Contemporary accounts describe it as a one-year-only model, which helps explain why it has become a notable collector piece among fans of tariff-era Japanese motorcycles. Its appeal today is largely historical: it represents Kawasaki’s response to a specific regulatory moment, and it bridges the older big-bore UJMs of the late 1970s with the more market-tailored motorcycles that followed.